beggar
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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to reduce to utter poverty; impoverish.
The family had been beggared by the war.
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to cause one's resources of or ability for (description, comparison, etc.) to seem poor or inadequate.
The costume beggars description.
noun
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a person who begs, esp one who lives by begging
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a person who has no money or resources; pauper
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ironic fellow
lucky beggar!
verb
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to be beyond the resources of (esp in the phrase to beggar description )
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to impoverish; reduce to begging
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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beggarsimple
-
beggarssimple
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have beggaredperfect
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has beggaredperfect
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am beggaringprogressive
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are beggaringprogressive
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is beggaringprogressive
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have been beggaringperfect progressive
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has been beggaringperfect progressive
Past
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beggaredsimple
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had beggaredperfect
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was beggaringprogressive
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were beggaringprogressive
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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:
In several essays, including one titled “The Wandering Jew,” Elie Wiesel describes his friendship with a mysterious, charismatic sage who dresses like a beggar but whose Jewish learning enthralls all those who meet him.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026
King Lear, bearing the brunt of a storm, looks at what he thinks is a mad beggar and wonders if “unaccommodated man” is no more than “a poor, bare, forked animal.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2025
"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
“But here, you see a beggar and you think to yourself, ‘He’s working for them,’” he added, referring to Pakistan’s powerful intelligence services.
From New York Times ● May 19, 2024
If he was an ungrateful beggar, he had to act like one.
From "Blood of Olympus" by Rick Riordan
Kershaw, who had a take home pay of £1,400 a month, claimed to have a "compulsive shopping addiction", and give money to beggars, as well as pay household bills.
From BBC ● Apr. 20, 2026
The novel illuminates the makeshift community cultivated among the beggars, who maintain their own hierarchy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 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
"Common people, business owners — even beggars — are now fed up. Justice has been sent into exile."
From Barron's ● Feb. 9, 2026
“You wouldn’t speak with us. You treated us like beggars and thieves.”
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
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
Even in a country used to royal spectacle, that parade beggared description: 19 military bands and 4,000 troops, stretching a full mile from the palace gates along the mall and around the corner into Whitehall.
From New York Times ● May 6, 2023
Before his removal, Mr Gove had said it "beggared belief" that he was still in post.
From BBC ● Nov. 24, 2022
If you thought the scot-free museum heist beggared belief, then you underestimate Elektra and her imagination.
From Salon ● May 2, 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
It was in the thick of one of its periodic reform dramas, beggaring any movie and featuring a bomb, a Thin Man, a false-bottomed car.
From Time Magazine Archive
Philip had repaired her loss by beggaring himself.
From Young Mr. Barter's Repentance From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray by Murray, David Christie
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
