mendicity
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of mendicity
1350–1400; Middle English mendicite < Latin mendīcitās beggary, equivalent to mendīc ( us ) needy, beggarly + -itās -ity
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.
For Alexander it was just another day in the 1995 campaign, a marathon of mendicity that will do much to determine which G.O.P. hopefuls will survive to compete in the 1996 campaign.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Pontifical Government encourages mendicity by the protection of its agents, and recommends it by the example of its friars.
From The Roman Question by About, Edmond
Members of religious communities were expelled from their monasteries and reduced to mendicity.
From Pius IX. And His Time by Dawson, Æneas MacDonell
It is to this, in a great measure, the augmentation of vice and mendicity =sic= is to be attributed in nations, as they become wealthy and great.
From An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. Designed To Shew How The Prosperity Of The British Empire May Be Prolonged by Playfair, William
The Council of Trent confined mendicity to the Observantines and Capuchins, since the other societies had practically abandoned their original interpretation of their vow of poverty and had acquired permanent property.
From A Short History of Monks and Monasteries by Wishart, Alfred Wesley
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.
