to ask for as a gift, as charity, or as a favor: to beg alms; to beg forgiveness.
to ask (someone) to give or do something; implore: He begged me for mercy. Sit down, I beg you.
to take for granted without basis or justification: a statement that begs the very point we're disputing.
to fail or refuse to come to grips with; avoid; evade: a report that consistently begs the whole problem.
verb (used without object),begged,beg·ging.
to ask alms or charity; live by asking alms.
to ask humbly or earnestly: begging for help; begging to differ.
(of a dog) to sit up, as trained, in a posture of entreaty.
Verb Phrases
beg off, to request or obtain release from an obligation, promise, etc.: He had promised to drive us to the recital but begged off at the last minute.
Idioms
beg the question, to assume the truth of the very point raised in a question.
go begging, to remain open or available, as a position that is unfilled or an unsold item: The job went begging for lack of qualified applicants.
Origin of beg
1
before 900;Middle Englishbeggen, by assimilation from Old English*bedican, syncopated variant of bedecian to beg; compare Gothicbidagwa beggar. See bead
Related formshalf-beg·ging, adjectiveun·begged, adjective
2. Beg and request are used in certain conventional formulas, in the sense of ask.Beg, once a part of many formal expressions used in letter writing, debate, etc., is now used chiefly in such courteous formulas as I beg your pardon; The Committee begs to report, etc. Request, more impersonal and now more formal, is used in giving courteous orders ( You are requested to report ) and in commercial formulas like to request payment.
c.1200, perhaps from Old English bedecian "to beg," from Proto-Germanic *beth-; or possibly from Anglo-French begger, from Old French begart (see beggar). The Old English word for "beg" was wædlian, from wædl "poverty." Of trained dogs, 1816.
As a courteous mode of asking (beg pardon, etc.), first attested c.1600. To beg the question translates Latin petitio principii, and means "to assume something that hasn't been proven as a basis of one's argument," thus "asking" one's opponent to give something unearned, though more of the nature of taking it for granted without warrant.
