mendicant

[ men-di-kuh nt ]

/ ˈmɛn dɪ kənt /

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR mendicant ON THESAURUS.COM

adjective

begging; practicing begging; living on alms.

pertaining to or characteristic of a beggar.

noun

a person who lives by begging; beggar.

a member of any of several orders of friars that originally forbade ownership of property, subsisting mostly on alms.

RELATED WORDS

vagabond, panhandler, pauper, monk

Nearby words

Origin of mendicant

1425–75; late Middle English < Latin mendīcant- (stem of mendīcāns), present participle of mendīcāre to beg, equivalent to mendīc(us) beggarly, needy + -ant- -ant

Related formsnon·men·di·cant, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for mendicant

They were regarded as belonging to the ranks of the mendicant friars and not to the monastic Order.
English Monastic Life|Abbot Gasquet
Other mendicant orders prove the dominant ideas of the time.
Folkways|William Graham Sumner
The attempt of Durand of Huesca to create a mendicant order has not yet been studied with sufficient minuteness.
Life of St. Francis of Assisi|Paul Sabatier
He fell into the blindness of the miser, who cheers himself with hoarded gold, but lives like a mendicant.
Children of the Soil|Henryk Sienkiewicz

Wealth cannot be earned by leading a mendicant life, nor by a life of feebleness.
Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1|Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

British Dictionary definitions for mendicant

mendicant

/ (ˈmɛndɪkənt) /

adjective

begging

(of a member of a religious order) dependent on alms for sustenancemendicant friars

characteristic of a beggar

noun

a mendicant friar

a less common word for beggar

Derived Formsmendicancy or mendicity (mɛnˈdɪsɪtɪ), noun

Word Origin for mendicant

C16: from Latin mendīcāre to beg, from mendīcus beggar, from mendus flaw

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 mendicant

mendicant

adj.

late 14c., from Latin mendicantem (nominative mendicans) present participle of mendicare "to beg, ask alms," from mendicus "beggar," originally "cripple" (connection via cripples who must beg), from menda "fault, physical defect" (see mendacious). As an adjective from 1540s. Also in Middle English was mendinant (mid-14c.), from Old French mendinant, present participle of mendiner "to beg," from the same Latin source.

mendicant

"a beggar," mid-15c., from mendicant (adj.) or from Latin mendicantem (nominative mendicans), noun use of present participle of mendicare.