Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who solicits alms for a living.
  • noun An impoverished person; a pauper.
  • noun Informal A man or a boy.
  • transitive verb To make a beggar of; impoverish.
  • transitive verb To exceed the limits, resources, or capabilities of.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make a beggar of; reduce to beggary; impoverish.
  • To exhaust the resources of; exceed the means or capacity of; outdo.
  • noun One who begs or asks alms; especially, one who lives by asking alms or makes it his business to beg.
  • noun One who is in indigent circumstances; one who has been beggared.
  • noun One who asks a favor; one who entreats; a petitioner.
  • noun One who assumes in argument what he does not prove.
  • noun A fellow; a rogue: used in contempt for a low fellow;
  • noun as a term of playful familiarity: as, he is a good-hearted little beggar.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who begs; one who asks or entreats earnestly, or with humility; a petitioner.
  • noun One who makes it his business to ask alms.
  • noun One who is dependent upon others for support; -- a contemptuous or sarcastic use.
  • noun One who assumes in argument what he does not prove.
  • transitive verb To reduce to beggary; to impoverish.
  • transitive verb To cause to seem very poor and inadequate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who begs.
  • noun A person suffering from extreme poverty.
  • verb To make a beggar of someone; impoverish.
  • verb To exhaust the resources of; to outdo.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb be beyond the resources of
  • verb reduce to beggary
  • noun a pauper who lives by begging

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French begart, ultimately from Middle Dutch beggaert, one who rattles off prayers.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French begart, originally a member of the Beghards, a lay brotherhood of mendicants in the Low Countries, from Middle Dutch beggaert ("mendicant"), with pejorative suffix; the order is said to be named after the priest Lambert le Bègue of Liège (French for “Lambert the Stammerer”). Others claim it is from Middle English beggere or beggare, from beggen ("to beg") + -are ("-er") (Modern English beg).

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Examples

  • Scott, while I agree that fixing the underlying problem that produces the beggar is a noble idea, please consider two things:

    Begging-Mazatlan 2002

  • What does it mean when the beggar is more powerful than the one that extends the coin?

    AIG WTF | clusterflock 2009

  • Zoellick said: "History shows there is no future in 'beggar thy neighbour' policies, and in an increasingly inter-connected world, we need not just to be conscious of the negative effects policies can have on others, but we need to act accordingly."

    World Bank calls for co-operation to halt full-scale currency war Larry Elliott Economics editor 2010

  • So when Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF managing director, acknowledged that the language of a recent IMF summit communique was "ineffective", that the time for "real action" had come and that he feared "a race to the bottom" as the major countries began to outdo each other in beggar-my-neighbour currency wars, you should sit up and listen.

    History will see these cuts as one of the great acts of political folly Will Hutton 2010

  • A beggar is a man who is forced, by fate, to remind us of Christ; he is Christ's brother; he is the bell of the Lord, and rings in life for the purpose of awakening our conscience, of stirring up the satiety of man's flesh.

    Fomá Gordyéeff 2010

  • Oddly enough, the train beggar managed to control his gnawing hunger for long enough to keep begging.

    It *is* heroin, right? amuchmoreexotic 2008

  • Can't Post | but keep in mind that the more you give the less likely the beggar is to buscar otro remedio (look for another solution), and the more likely others are to emulate his success.

    Begging-Mazatlan 2002

  • The citizen who fears the ill-smelling drunk, the rowdy teenager, or the importuning beggar is not merely expressing his distaste for unseemly behavior; he is also giving voice to a bit of folk wisdom that happens to be a correct generalization — namely, that serious street crime flourishes in areas in which disorderly behavior goes unchecked.

    Broken Windows 1982

  • The citizen who fears the ill-smelling drunk, the rowdy teenager, or the importuning beggar is not merely expressing his distaste for unseemly behavior; he is also giving voice to a bit of folk wisdom that happens to be a correct generalization — namely, that serious street crime flourishes in areas in which disorderly behavior goes unchecked.

    Broken Windows 1982

  • The millionaire as well as the beggar is content with just so much air as he can breathe.

    As I Please 1944

Comments

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  • I am unable, yonder beggar cries,

    To stand, or move; if he say true, hee lies.

    John Donne (Epigrams)

    November 16, 2007

  • Heehee.

    November 16, 2007