Definitions

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

  • noun Extreme poverty; penury.
  • noun The state or condition of being a beggar.
  • noun Beggars considered as a group.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Beggarly; poor; mean.
  • 2. Full of weeds.
  • noun The state of a beggar; a condition of extreme indigence.
  • noun The act or practice of begging; the occupation of a beggar; begging.
  • noun Beggars collectively; beggardom; beggarhood.
  • noun A state of bareness or deficiency.

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

  • noun The act of begging; the state of being a beggar; mendicancy; extreme poverty.
  • noun rare Beggarly appearance.
  • adjective obsolete Beggarly.

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

  • noun The state of a beggar; indigence, extreme poverty.
  • noun The fact or action of begging.
  • adjective obsolete beggarly

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

  • noun a solicitation for money or food (especially in the street by an apparently penniless person)
  • noun the state of being a beggar or mendicant

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From beggar.

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Examples

  • "We are too much afraid of what we call beggary," said Adela.

    The Bertrams Anthony Trollope 1848

  • At 46, Hermann credits most New Orleans-style musicians for his avoidance of a life of beggary, which is why after this Mardi Gras Band tour - watch for new

    JamBase 2009

  • -- for these fellows do not only not know or care for the observance of the city ordinance, which certainly is binding on them, but, relying on a fellow-feeling of vulgarity with the mob, resist all attempts made to remove them from the exercise of their most fearful beggary, which is not even tolerated any longer at Naples.

    Jersey Street and Jersey Lane Urban and Suburban Sketches Kenneth [Illustrator] Frazier 1875

  • Yet neither is every kind of beggary an occasion of theft and perjury, as Solomon seems to add

    Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition Aquinas Thomas

  • "They might turn us from this shelter, true; they might leave us nothing but charity or beggary, that is sure enough.

    The Shadow of a Crime A Cumbrian Romance Hall Caine 1892

  • To see a once-thriving city reduced to beggary and emptiness, to live one day at a time in point of food and medicine, to see an old European order brutally and efficiently overturned, to notice the utterly casual way in which human life can be snuffed out, and to see war machines wheeling and diving in the overcast sky: such an education!

    The Catastrophist 2010

  • To see a once-thriving city reduced to beggary and emptiness, to live one day at a time in point of food and medicine, to see an old European order brutally and efficiently overturned, to notice the utterly casual way in which human life can be snuffed out, and to see war machines wheeling and diving in the overcast sky: such an education!

    The Catastrophist 2010

  • Posted in Gloaming Announcements, tagged admin, beggary, blog, donations, website on November 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

    November « 2009 « In The Gloaming Podcasts 2009

  • We were in the rags of beggary, prideless in the dust, and yet I was laughing heartily at some mumbled merry quip of the Lady Om when a shadow fell upon us.

    Chapter 15 2010

  • Every effort I made to escape beggary was in the end frustrated by

    Chapter 15 2010

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