Reading

pecuniary [pi-kyoo-nee-er-ee]

adjective:
1 of or relating to money
2 consisting of or given or exacted in money or monetary payments
3 (of a crime, violation, etc.) involving a money penalty or fine

Examples:

By night, she lives alongside four other young women on the top floor in the May Of Teck club which 'exists for the Pecuniary Convenience and Social Protection of Ladies of Slender Means below the age of Thirty Years, who are obliged to reside apart from their Families in order to follow an Occupation in London'. (Claire Wood, Poignant, punchy staging captures Spark’s smart, sassy girls of slender means, The Wee Review, April 2024)

As a result, the claimant requested that a pecuniary sanction be imposed on the respondent for its continued refusal to comply with the arbitral tribunal's order. (Oliver Cojo and Angela Portocarrero, Fine line? A New Case on Arbitrators' Power to Impose Sanctions, Kluwer Arbitration Blog, May 2022)

But to deliberately throw up roadblocks that prevent easy comparisons is to turn up an institution's collective nose at anyone with even the mildest pecuniary concerns. (Ron Lieber, Concealing the Calculus of Higher Education, The New York Times, January 2016)

In Nevada, 'no person actively engaged or having a direct pecuniary interest in gaming activities shall be a member' of the Nevada Gaming Commission, according to state law. (Dana Gentry, Murren's donning of multiple hats may prove problematic, Nevada Current, December 2024)

But they, Exalted Creatures! scorned to reflect a moment on their pecuniary Distresses and would have blushed at the idea of paying their Debts.--Alas! (Jane Austen, Love and Friendship)

I had passed over the manner in which this person had remarked that I was more than twenty-one, and that I had no pecuniary interest in my aunt's Will. (Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone)

(click to enlarge)

Pecuniary first appeared in English in the early 16th century and comes from the Latin word pecunia, which means 'money.' Both this root and Latin peculium, which means 'private property,' are related to the Latin noun for cattle, pecus. Among Latin speakers (as among many other populations, past and present) cattle were viewed as a trading commodity, and property was often valued in terms of cattle. Pecunia has also given us impecunious, a word meaning 'having little or no money,' while peculium gave us peculate, a synonym for embezzle. In peculium you might also recognize the word peculiar, which originally meant 'characteristic of only one' or 'distinctive' before acquiring its current meaning of 'strange.' (Merriam-Webster)