- 1身無分文
Someone who is penniless has no money — not a little short, but none to speak of. The picture in the word is “without even a penny,” though of course it means without money in general, notes included. It is still used, but it sounds a bit like a story or a news headline: a penniless student, left penniless after the fire. In everyday talk, broke is more common and more casual; poor is broader and can last for years, while penniless often points to a sharp empty moment. You can be penniless and still have friends, a bag, a place to sleep — the word is about money, not about having nothing at all in life. It is not rude, but it is blunt, so people sometimes it (almost penniless, nearly penniless).
組成penny + -less (without). There is an old Norse word, penningalauss, that meant the same thing.
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
pennilessadj/ˈpɛ.nɪ.ləs/
- 1
Lacking even the smallest amount of money.
- In societies without national insurance of any kind, almshouses are the last refuge of penniless people.
- In a functioning digital economy, being cashless is far different from being penniless, because cash is merely one form of money; but some preppers hoard gold in case the system gets destroyed and cashlessness suddenly becomes pennilessness.
- 2
bankingbusinesshobbiesOf a country's system of money, abstaining from the use of penny coins, despite having fully decimalized currency, by means of rounding of cash transactions (but not necessarily of cashless ones).
- Canada became a penniless country in 2013 simply by rounding its cash transactions to the nearest nickel but otherwise not changing anything.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。