His temper was irritable, his habits penurious and solitary.
Here he unsuccessfully applied for a situation as communal secretary of Verolengo, and eked out a penurious existence by journalism.
This, which is now chiefly used in the sense of inferior, low, ignoble, or of avaricious, penurious, "stingy," meant originally that which is common to more persons or things than one.