mendicity

American  

[men-dis-i-tee] / mɛnˈdɪs ɪ ti /

noun

1. mendicancy.

---

Etymology

Origin of mendicity

1350–1400; Middle English mendicite < Latin mendīcitās beggary, equivalent to mendīc ( us ) needy, beggarly + -itās -ity

Example Sentences

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

Every genuinely benevolent person loathes almsgiving and mendicity.

From Maxims for Revolutionists by Shaw, Bernard

In 1826 it was converted into a mendicity institution, and all its ornamental portions removed.

From An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 by Cusack, Mary Frances

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

While it is true that a begging monk was by no means unknown, yet now, for the first time, was the practice of mendicity formally adopted by entire orders.

From A Short History of Monks and Monasteries by Wishart, Alfred Wesley