mendicancy
Americannoun
-
the practice of begging, as for alms.
-
the state or condition of being a beggar.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of mendicancy
First recorded in 1780–90; mendic(ant) + -ancy
Vocabulary lists containing mendicancy
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.
Disillusioned with "the perishable world," he suddenly renounces his princely surroundings for a life of famished mendicancy.
From Time Magazine Archive
One should equally avoid the appearance of mendicancy and that of prosperity . . . don't wait to be invited to ride . . . walk on the wrong side of the road.
From Time Magazine Archive
Rhee's truculence is echoed by many Koreans, and for understandable reasons: without the power resources, the fertilizer factories and the iron mines of North Korea, the republic is doomed to economic mendicancy.
From Time Magazine Archive
This licensed mendicancy was finally suppressed by the Act of Parliament, passed in the thirty-ninth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, “For the Suppressing of Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars.”
From The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries To-Day and in Days of Old by Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
The works of holiness of the old Church--an irrational alms-giving--had spread throughout Christendom an unwieldy mass of mendicancy.
From Pictures of German Life in the XVth XVIth and XVIIth Centuries, Vol. II. by Freytag, Gustav
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.
