beggar description

Idioms  

1. Defy or outdo any possible description, as in The stage set was so elaborate, it beggared description. This term, alluding to the idea that words are insufficient to do something justice, was already used by Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra (2:2), “For her own person It beggared all description.”

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Example Sentences

And from sun rise to sun set, I passed through scenes and experiences that beggar description.

From Slate • Oct. 23, 2019

The acoustics are so complex that they beggar description.

From Time Magazine Archive

The events that occurred during the following hundred or more days beggar description.

From The Smoky God, or, a voyage to the inner world by Emerson, Willis George

Meanwhile King Sasan went in to his wife Nuzhet ez Zeman, who said to him, "I hear that the folk talk of nothing but Kanmakan and attribute to him such qualities as beggar description."

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume II by Payne, John

Since the high sheriff came to my relief, my confinement is considerably softened, particularly by the admission of the female branches of my family: but the contrast is yet such as to beggar description.

From Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. — Volume 1 by Hunt, Henry