beggar

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See also: béggar

English

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A female beggar in Mexico

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English beggere, beggare, beggar (“beggar”), from Middle English beggen (“to beg”), equivalent to beg +‎ -ar.

Alternative etymology derives Middle English beggere, beggare, beggar from Old French begart, originally a member of the Beghards, a lay brotherhood of mendicants in the Low Countries, from Middle Dutch beggaert (“mendicant”), with pejorative suffix (see -ard); the order is said to be named after the priest Lambert le Bègue of Liège (French for “Lambert the Stammerer”).

Pronunciation

Noun

beggar (plural beggars)

  1. A person who begs.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      “ […] They talk of you as if you were Croesus—and I expect the beggars sponge on you unconscionably.” And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes.
    • 1983, Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Sophist: The Drama of Original & Image, St. Augustine’s Press, p. 62:
      Odysseus has returned to his home disguised as a beggar.
  2. A person suffering from extreme poverty.
  3. (colloquial, sometimes endearing) A mean or wretched person; a scoundrel.
    What does that silly beggar think he's doing?
  4. (UK) A minced oath for bugger.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Terms derived from beggar (noun)

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Verb

beggar (third-person singular simple present beggars, present participle beggaring, simple past and past participle beggared)

  1. (transitive) To make a beggar of someone; impoverish.
  2. (transitive, figurative) To exhaust the resources of; to outdo or go beyond.
    • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
      `Now,' answered Ayesha, with proud humility - `now when my lord doth speak thus royally and give with so free a hand, it cannot become me to lag behind in words, and be beggared of my generosity.'
    • 1965, Frank Herbert, Dune, 1st edition, page 109:
      It was a scene of such beauty it caught all his attention. / Some things beggar likeness, he thought.
    • 1996 July 7, Angeline Goreau, “Speed”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:
      Taking the ontological temperature of today and of the pre-revolutionary 18th century, Mr. Kundera finds that the speed we love has beggared us of pleasure.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Terms derived from beggar (verb)

Translations

Anagrams

Middle English

Noun

beggar

  1. Alternative form of beggere
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