BEGGAR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does beggar mean? 

• BEGGAR (noun)
  The noun BEGGAR has 1 sense:

1. a pauper who lives by begging

  Familiarity information: BEGGAR used as a noun is very rare.

• BEGGAR (verb)
  The verb BEGGAR has 2 senses:

1. be beyond the resources of

2. reduce to beggary

  Familiarity information: BEGGAR used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BEGGAR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A pauper who lives by begging

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

beggar; mendicant

Hypernyms ("beggar" is a kind of...):

pauper (a person who is very poor)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "beggar"):

beggarman (a man who is a beggar)

beggarwoman (a woman who is a beggar)

cadger; mooch; moocher; scrounger (someone who mooches or cadges (tries to get something free))

panhandler (a beggar who approaches strangers asking for money)

sannyasi; sannyasin; sanyasi (a Hindu religious mendicant)

Instance hyponyms:

Lazarus (the diseased beggar in Jesus' parable of the rich man and the beggar)

Derivation:

beggar (reduce to beggary)

beggarly (marked by poverty befitting a beggar)

• BEGGAR (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they beggar    ... he / she / it beggars   
Past simple: beggared   
Past participle: beggared   
-ing form: beggaring   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be beyond the resources of

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Context example:

This beggars description!

Hypernyms (to "beggar" is one way to...):

defy; refuse; resist (elude, especially in a baffling way)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Reduce to beggary

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Synonyms:

beggar; pauperise; pauperize

Hypernyms (to "beggar" is one way to...):

impoverish (make poor)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Derivation:

beggar (a pauper who lives by begging)

 Context examples 

Swiftly I threw off my clothes, pulled on those of a beggar, and put on my pigments and wig.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"The beggar sells nothing but American whiskey. But here's a quart of it."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The impression was, _A king lifting up a lame beggar from the earth_.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

His property was confiscated; his child became an orphan and a beggar.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He is a selfish old beggar anyhow.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

“Get your palm and needle and sew the beggar up. You’ll find some old canvas in the sail-locker. Make it do.”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He would try to make my children friendly to the little beggar: the darlings could not bear it, and he was angry with them when they showed their dislike.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“Now, Bill, sit where you are,” said the beggar.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

“Meanwhile it grieves me that as I have already given my purse to a beggar up the road I—”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There was not a beggar upon the country side who did not know that his heart was as soft as his muscles were hard.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)