Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Depending on alms for a living; practicing begging.
- n. A beggar.
- n. A member of an order of friars forbidden to own property in common, who work or beg for their living.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Begging; reduced to a condition of beggary
- Practising beggary; living by alms or doles: as, a mendicant friar. See friar.
- n. A beggar; one who lives by asking alms; especially, a member of a begging order or fraternity; a begging friar.
Wiktionary
- adj. Depending on alms for a living.
- adj. Of or pertaining to a beggar.
- adj. Of or pertaining to a member of a religious order forbidden to own property, and who must beg for a living.
- n. A pauper who lives by begging.
- n. A religious friar forbidden to own personal property who begs for a living.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Practicing beggary; begging; living on alms.
- n. A beggar; esp., one who makes a business of begging; specifically, a begging friar.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. practicing beggary
- n. a pauper who lives by begging
- n. a male member of a religious order that originally relied solely on alms
Etymologies
- From Latin mendīcāns, present participle of mendīcō ("beg"). Compare French mendiant. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French, from Latin mendīcāns, mendīcant-, present participle of mendīcāre, to beg, from mendīcus, needy, beggar, from mendum, physical defect. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Historically, orders of friars could not own property, and individual friars were beggars hence the term mendicant, although this was changed insofar as the orders were concerned by the Council of Trent.”
“What I did not know until tonight, whilst reading Downloading Midnight by William Browning Spencer (a so-far excellent cyberpunk novelette) was that mendicant is a real word and not a made-up construct.”
“That person would merely be known as a mendicant monk or bhikshu.”
“One is not to be called a mendicant for his having only renounced his possessions, or for his having only adopted a life of dependence on eleemosynary charity.”
The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12
“This was a very serious calamity to the Dominicans, for as they, like the Franciscans, belonged to what were known as the mendicant orders, and depended for their daily bread upon what they could beg, they were reduced to extremity.”
“jesse smith - a mendicant is a beggar. the buddhist may be a special case in that he does it silently and has a spiffy name for goodwill, but he is doing the same thing.”
“Just to be clear, the link for the word "mendicant" seem to equate it with "begging".”
“Many shopkeepers seem to regard the customer as a kind of mendicant and to feel that they are conferring a favour on him by selling him anything.”
“This kind of mendicant is distinctly rural, and belongs to old times.”
“They saw him slouch for'ard after breakfast, and, like a mendicant, with outstretched palm, accost a sailor.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mendicant’.
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GRE Barron's 800
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abject, abjure, abscission, abscond, abstemious, abstinence, abysmal, accretion and 787 more...
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phrontistery - m
from phrontistery.info
mabble, mabsoot, macadamize, macarism, macarize, macaronic, macerate, macerator, machair, machairodont, machicolation, machinule and 898 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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my fab list
blowsabella, aperçu, froideur, salubrious, abject, gallipot, mumchance, wainscot, virago, macerate, lascivious, clandestine and 181 more...
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New words
new words or spelling issues
voluble, Metagrobolize, salubrious, calumny, fugacity, withdrawal, bourse, hypertrophy, leitmotif, argot, improvident, damask and 246 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2057 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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GRE
droll, dyspeptic, ebullient, ardor, edify, efficacy, malinger, mannered, martinet, maudlin, mendacious, mendicant and 102 more...
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March 2012
panache, evanescent, erogenous, vestibule, malfeasance, lacuna, blithering, incubate, breech, tabernacle, pearly, upholstery and 79 more...
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Misanthropic
Lovecraft, Lovecraftian, bete noire
Lovecraftian, bête noire, festinate, hathos, misogynist, foredoom, decorticate, malingerer, nemophilist, mendicant, pendragon, stultify and 33 more...
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Talking About Words
The favorite words of Talking Tyrants
dolorous, parsimonious, apotemnophilia, odalisque, tuberoinfundibular, morass, ostentatious, sybaritic, vermilion, onomatopoeia, eschatology, teleology and 49 more...
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on the road again
nomad, itinerant, wanderer, gypsy, vagrant, ranger, floater, gadling, scatterling, landloper, wayfarer, rover and 59 more...
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The best words
dd
insipid, insouciant, interdict, insularity, internecine, inveigle, invidious, irresolute, jollity, irascible, libretto, promulgate and 34 more...
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Vocabulary
Words I come across while reading.
talus, echelon, onanistic, cabochon, avocation, charnel, moue, portentous, prolixity, astringent, hoary, patina and 165 more...
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newGRE
mostly from magoosh
imbue, verge on, nonchalant, deliberate, timorous, futile, provisional, dissect, checked, tinged, alluring, visionary and 1046 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for mendicant.
bilby I know a person who labours, yet is unpaid for it in a formal way. He therefore relies on his mendicant existence for sustenance. He says this lifesyle is positive for the world because when people see him picking up rubbish beside the road - that's what he does - they are moved to be generous. It is 'love' that motivates such generosity. Therefore he sees that the product of his lifestyle is love, not mooching. Jul 6, 2008
limberbellona 1 year later, limberbellona is agreeing with you Jul 6, 2008
uselessness Nothing against anyone who willingly practices a mendicant lifestyle for spiritual reasons... but the pragmatist in me has to question the logic of it. It appears to me that it's basically turning oneself into a mooch, which seems like an inherently selfish thing to do. Wouldn't it be better, in theory, to live a life of generosity, sharing what one has earned legitimately through hard work, rather than to leech off of other peoples' labor? Jun 18, 2007