BEGGARLY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does beggarly mean? 

• BEGGARLY (adjective)
  The adjective BEGGARLY has 2 senses:

1. marked by poverty befitting a beggar

2. (used of sums of money) so small in amount as to deserve contempt

  Familiarity information: BEGGARLY used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BEGGARLY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Marked by poverty befitting a beggar

Synonyms:

beggarly; mean

Context example:

a mean hut

Similar:

poor (characterized by or indicating poverty)

Derivation:

beggar (a pauper who lives by begging)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(used of sums of money) so small in amount as to deserve contempt

Synonyms:

beggarly; mean

Similar:

stingy; ungenerous (unwilling to spend (money, time, resources, etc.))

 Context examples 

Twelve hundred pounds she’s worth to me, Mary, my darling, and never again shall you soil your pretty fingers or pinch upon my beggarly pay.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Often had Alleyne curled his lip at the beggarly craving for land or for gold which blinded man to the higher and more lasting issues of life.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

We can only offer you a beggarly five hundred to start with.

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

And all because she will not find a beggarly sum which she could get by turning her diamonds into paste.

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

I cannot tell; Aunt Reed says if I have any, they must be a beggarly set: I should not like to go a begging.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

There is likewise a kind of beggarly princes in Europe, not able to make war by themselves, who hire out their troops to richer nations, for so much a day to each man; of which they keep three-fourths to themselves, and it is the best part of their maintenance: such are those in many northern parts of Europe.

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