beggar
Americannoun
-
beggars
plural
verb (used with object)
-
beggars,
present (3rd person singular)
-
beggared,
past participle, past
-
beggaring
present participle
-
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.
noun
-
a person who begs, esp one who lives by begging
-
a person who has no money or resources; pauper
-
ironic fellow
lucky beggar!
verb
-
to be beyond the resources of (esp in the phrase to beggar description )
-
to impoverish; reduce to begging
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
beggarsimple
-
beggarssimple
-
have beggaredperfect
-
has beggaredperfect
-
am beggaringprogressive
-
are beggaringprogressive
-
is beggaringprogressive
-
have been beggaringperfect progressive
-
has been beggaringperfect progressive
Past
-
beggaredsimple
-
had beggaredperfect
-
was beggaringprogressive
-
were beggaringprogressive
-
had been beggaringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of beggar
First recorded in 1175–1225, beggar is from the Middle English word beggare, beggere. See beg 1, -er 1, -ar 3
Explanation
A beggar is a poor person who asks others, or begs, for money or food. Another word for a beggar is a "panhandler," although both terms are vaguely offensive. No one wants to be a beggar. Many people who are beggars are also homeless and haven't been able to find jobs. Sometimes people use the word in an informal, pitying way: "Poor little beggar, he works so hard!" Another informal term is "to beggar belief," as when something is so incredible that you find it hard to believe. Another expression is “beggars can’t be choosers” which means you get what you get and you don’t get upset.
Vocabulary lists containing beggar
Broke-abulary: Synonyms for "Poor"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“I’m just a beggar that found food, and I’m telling everybody where it is,” Jackson said.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 26, 2026
Whether buying a Porsche 911, paying bills or giving money to a beggar at a stoplight, the payment is made the same way.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
Robbie’s most deliciously debasing scene is when she throws coins on the ground for a desperate beggar — and then that person forces her to watch as he picks them up.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 11, 2026
"It's just garbage... the clothes you can't even wear, you wouldn't even give to a beggar," Akoth said.
From Barron's ● Oct. 13, 2025
Before five minutes went by, the beggar tossed a pebble at us to draw our attention and jerked his head down the street.
From "The Shakespeare Stealer" by Gary L. Blackwood
The Board of Deputies of British Jews has called on the Conservatives to ditch him as a candidate, saying the selection "beggars belief".
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026
The novel illuminates the makeshift community cultivated among the beggars, who maintain their own hierarchy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 2026
"Common people, business owners — even beggars — are now fed up. Justice has been sent into exile."
From Barron's ● Feb. 9, 2026
Baroness May said it "beggars belief" that the Hicks were still having to fight to have the "truth acknowledged" about what had happened to their daughters.
From BBC ● Feb. 9, 2026
He is accustomed to people asking about the poverty, about the beggars and the heat.
From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri
A worse sin, even, than Amin’s expulsion in 1972 of every last Ugandan Asian, an act that was wildly popular with black Ugandans but which beggared Uganda almost overnight.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
But the soaring price of shipping beggared that strategy.
From New York Times ● Feb. 3, 2023
If you thought the scot-free museum heist beggared belief, then you underestimate Elektra and her imagination.
From Salon ● May 2, 2021
The whirlwind plot increasingly beggared belief; there were CBeebies-levels of expository dialogue; the melodrama was unintentionally hilarious.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 23, 2021
The teeth in their sockets like dental molds, the crude tattoos etched in some homebrewed woad faded in the beggared sunlight.
From "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
"It's beggaring the entire Forest Service budget," Safford said.
From Salon ● Mar. 1, 2022
But beggaring the workers who trusted promises made by their employers, their unions and their government is not the answer.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 9, 2018
It would have restricted development on grouse habitat, potentially beggaring states such as Wyoming which collects three-fifths of its revenues from energy companies.
From Economist ● May 3, 2018
Yet that is what is happening, beggaring all notions of propriety and common sense.
From Time Magazine Archive
His inscrutable face which was really a work of art, a perfect study in itself, beggaring description, conveyed the impression that he didn't understand one jot of what was going on.
From Ulysses by James Joyce
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
