beggar
[beg-er]
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- to reduce to utter poverty; impoverish: The family had been beggared by the war.
- to cause one's resources of or ability for (description, comparison, etc.) to seem poor or inadequate: The costume beggars description.
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Origin of beggar
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
vagabondpanhandlerbumvagrantsupplicantdeadbeattrampmendicanthoboborroweraskerscroungerrustlerdown-and-outbankruptdependentsuppliantpauperguttersnipeindigentExamples from the Web for beggar
Contemporary Examples
Better to be a beggar in freedom,” he cried out, “than to be forced into compromises against my conscience.
Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, and all that.
In an interview, Liang said, “Air should be the most valueless commodity, free to breathe for any vagrant or beggar.”
The landays in I Am the Beggar of the World are sung only when men are absent.
I am the Beggar of the World is a book of poems, war reportage, and photographs.
Historical Examples
In reply he offers me, as if I were a beggar, employment for my sons.
The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The MortgageCharles G. D. Roberts
I can only attribute it to the love interest associated with the beggar.
Yorkshire Painted And DescribedGordon Home
And is not the whole land like a beggar on horseback riding post to the Davil?
Old NewsNathaniel Hawthorne
Though I thank you heartily all the same; it would be a shame at my age to be a beggar.
Night and Morning, CompleteEdward Bulwer-Lytton
Must a man be a beggar because he is run over, or because he is half blind?
Night and Morning, CompleteEdward Bulwer-Lytton
beggar
- a person who begs, esp one who lives by begging
- a person who has no money or resources; pauper
- ironic, jocular, mainly British fellowlucky beggar!
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- to be beyond the resources of (esp in the phrase to beggar description)
- to impoverish; reduce to begging
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for beggar
n.
c.1200, from Old French begart, originally a member of the Beghards, lay brothers of mendicants in the Low Countries, from Middle Dutch beggaert "mendicant," of uncertain origin, with pejorative suffix (see -ard). Cf. Beguine. Early folk etymology connected the English word with bag. Form with -ar attested from 14c., but begger was more usual 15c.-17c. The feminine form beggestere is attested as a surname from c.1300. Beggar's velvet was an old name for "dust bunnies." "Beggers should be no choosers" is in Heywood (1562).
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v.
"reduce to poverty," mid-15c., from beggar (n.). Related: Beggared; beggaring. Figurative use by 1640s.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper