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 beggar.
- 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
- Middle English, from Old French, from Latin mendīcāns, mendīcant-, present participle of mendīcāre, to beg, from mendīcus, needy, beggar, from mendum, physical defect.
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 Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 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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Words build meanings from origins( etymology )
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 837 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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Of Mice and Men
Words with consecutive sequences of m-i-c-e or m-e-n.
pumice, vermicelli, Comice, cognomen, agnomen, amenable, mice, men, women, praenomen, mention, hemicellulose and 12 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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Talking About Words
The favorite words of Talking Tyrants
dolorous, parsimonious, apotemnophilia, odalisque, tuberoinfundibular, morass, ostentatious, sybaritic, vermilion, onomatopoeia, eschatology, teleology and 49 more...
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