Beggar

• POS: Noun, Verb (transitive)
• HYPHEN: beg=gar

CIDE DICTIONARY

Beggar, n. [OE. beggere, fr. beg.].

•  One who begs; one who asks or entreats earnestly, or with humility; a petitioner.  [1913 Webster]
•  One who makes it his business to ask alms.  [1913 Webster]
•  One who is dependent upon others for support; -- a contemptuous or sarcastic use.  [1913 Webster]
•  One who assumes in argument what he does not prove.  Abp. Tillotson.  [1913 Webster]

Beggar, v. t. 

•  To reduce to beggary; to impoverish; as, he had beggared himself.  Milton.  [1913 Webster]
•  To cause to seem very poor and inadequate.  [1913 Webster]

  "It beggared all description."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Beggar, n. & v.
--n.
1 a person who begs, esp. one who lives by begging.
2 a poor person.
3 colloq. a person; a fellow (poor beggar).
--v.tr.
1 reduce to poverty.
2 outshine.
3 exhaust the resources of (beggar description).

Idiom

beggar-my-neighbour
1 a card-game in which a player seeks to capture an opponent's cards.
2 (attrib.) (esp. of national policy) self-aggrandizing at the expense of competitors. beggars cannot (or must not) be choosers those without other resources must take what is offered.

Etymology

ME f. BEG + -AR(3)

DEVIL DICTIONARY

Beggar

n. One who has relied on the assistance of his friends.

THESAURUS

Beggar

Arab, Bowery bum, almsman, almswoman, asker, baffle, bankrupt, beach bum, beachcomber, beggarly fellow, blighter, bloke, bo, budmash, bum, bummer, cadger, caitiff, casual, challenge, chap, charity case, coupon clippers, deadbeat, defy, derelict, devil, dogie, down-and-out, down-and-outer, drifter, drone, drunkard, fellow, freeloader, gamin, gamine, good-for-naught, good-for-nothing, guttersnipe, guy, hardcase, hobo, homeless waif, human wreck, idle rich, idler, impoverish, indigent, landloper, lazzarone, leisure class, loafer, losel, lounge lizard, lowlife, lumpen proletariat, man, mauvais sujet, mean wretch, mendicant, mendicant friar, mendicant order, moocher, mucker, mudlark, no-good, nonworker, panhandler, parasite, pauper, pauperize, pauvre diable, penniless man, person, petitioner, piker, pilgarlic, poor creature, poor devil, poor man, poorling, prayer, ragamuffin, ragman, ragpicker, reduce, rentiers, rounder, sad case, sad sack, schnorrer, scrounger, ski bum, skid-row bum, spiv, sponge, sponger, starveling, stiff, stray, street Arab, street urchin, suitor, sundowner, suppliant, supplicant, supplicator, surf bum, swagman, swagsman, tatterdemalion, tennis bum, the unemployable, the unemployed, tramp, truant, turnpiker, urchin, vag, vagabond, vagrant, vaurien, waif, waifs and strays, want, wastrel, welfare client, worthless fellow, wretch

ROGET THESAURUS

Beggar

Petitioner

N petitioner, solicitor, applicant, suppliant, supplicant, suitor, candidate, claimant, postulant, aspirant, competitor, bidder, place hunter, pot hunter, prizer, seeker, beggar, mendicant, moocher, panhandler, freeloader, sponger, mumper, sturdy beggar, cadger, hotel runner, runner, steerer, tout, touter, pauper, homeless person, hobo, bum, tramp, bindle stiff, bo, knight of the road (poverty), hippie, flower child, hard core unemployed, welfare client, welfare case, canvasser, bagman, salesman.

Poverty

N poverty, indigence, penury, pauperism, destitution, want, need, neediness, lack, necessity, privation, distress, difficulties, wolf at the door, bad circumstances, poor circumstances, need circumstances, embarrassed circumstances, reduced circumstances, straightened circumstances, slender means, narrow means, straits, hand to mouth existence, res angusta domi, low water, impecuniosity, beggary, mendicancy, mendicity, broken fortune, loss of fortune, insolvency, empty pocket, empty purse, light purse, beggarly account of empty boxes, poor man, pauper, mendicant, mumper, beggar, starveling, pauvre diable, fakir, schnorrer, homeless person, poor, indigent, poverty-stricken, badly off, poorly off, ill off, poor as a rat, poor as a church mouse, poor as a Job, fortuneless, dowerless, moneyless, penniless, unportioned, unmoneyed, impecunious, out of money, out of cash, short of money, short of cash, without a rap, not worth a rap, qui n'a pas le sou, out of pocket, hard up, out at elbows, out at heels, seedy, bare-footed, beggarly, beggared, destitute, fleeced, stripped, bereft, bereaved, reduced, homeless, in want, needy, necessitous, distressed, pinched, straitened, put to one's shifts, put to one's last shifts, unable to keep the wolf from the door, unable to make both ends meet, embarrassed, under hatches, involved, insolvent, in forma pauperis, zonam perdidit, a penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree, a pobreza no hay verguenza, he that is down can fall no lower, poca roba poco pensiero, steeped, in poverty to the very lips, the short and simple annals of the poor.

Disrepute

VB be inglorious, incur disgrace, have a bad name, earn a bad name, put a halter round one's neck, wear a halter round one's neck, disgrace oneself, expose oneself, play second fiddle, lose caste, pale one's ineffectual fire, recede into the shade, fall from one's high estate, keep in the background, be conscious of disgrace, look blue, look foolish, look like a fool, cut a poor figure, cut a sorry figure, laugh on the wrong side of the mouth, make a sorry face, go away with a flea in, one's ear, slink away, cause shame, shame, disgrace, put to shame, dishonor, throw dishonor upon, cast dishonor upon, fling dishonor upon, reflect dishonor upon, be a reproach, to, derogate from, tarnish, stain, blot sully, taint, discredit, degrade, debase, defile, beggar, expel, impute shame to, brand, post, stigmatize, vilify, defame, slur, cast a slur upon, hold up to shame, send to Coventry, tread under foot, trample under foot, show up, drag through the mire, heap dirt upon, reprehend, bring low, put down, snub, take down a peg, take down a peg lower, take down a peg or two, obscure, eclipse, outshine, take the shine out of, throw into the shade, cast into the shade, overshadow, leave in the background, put in the background, push into a corner, put one's nose out of joint, put out, put out of countenance, upset, throw off one's center, discompose, disconcert, put to the blush.

Commonalty

N commonality, commonalty, democracy, obscurity, low condition, low life, low society, low company, bourgeoisie, mass of the people, mass of society, Brown Jones and Robinson, lower classes, humbler classes, humbler orders, vulgar herd, common herd, rank and file, hoc genus omne, the many, the general, the crowd, the people, the populace, the multitude, the million, the masses, the mobility, the peasantry, king Mob, proletariat, fruges consumere nati, demos, hoi polloi, great unwashed, man in the street, mob, rabble, rabble rout, chaff, rout, horde, canaille, scum of the people, residuum of the people, dregs of the people, dregs of society, swinish multitude, foex populi, trash, profanum vulgus, ignobile vulgus, vermin, riffraff, ragtag and bobtail, small fry, commoner, one of the people, democrat, plebeian, republican, proletary, proletaire, roturier, Mr, Snooks, bourgeois, epicier, Philistine, cockney, grisette, demimonde, peasant, countryman, boor, carle, churl, villain, villein, terrae filius, son of the land, serf, kern, tyke, tike, chuff, ryot, fellah, longshoreman, swain, clown, hind, clod, clodhopper, hobnail, yokel, bog-trotter, bumpkin, plowman, plowboy, rustic, hayseed, lunkhead, chaw-bacon, tiller of the soil, hewers of wood and drawers of water, groundling, gaffer, loon, put, cub, Tony Lumpkin, looby, rube, lout, underling, gamin, rough, pot- wallopper, slubberdegullion, vulgar fellow, low fellow, cad, curmudgeon, upstart, parvenu, skipjack, nobody, nobody one knows, hesterni quirites, pessoribus orti, bourgeois gentilhomme, novus homo, snob, gent, mushroom, no one knows who, adventurer, man of straw, beggar, gaberlunzie, muckworm, mudlark, sans culotte, raff, tatterdemalion, caitiff, ragamuffin, Pariah, outcast of society, tramp, vagabond, bezonian, panhandler, sundowner, chiffonnier, Cinderella, cinderwench, scrub, jade, gossoon, Goth, Vandal, Hottentot, Zulu, savage, barbarian, Yahoo, unlicked cub, rough diamond, barbarousness, barbarism, boeotia, ignoble, common, mean, low, base, vile, sorry, scrubby, beggarly, below par, no great shakes, homely, homespun, vulgar, low-minded, snobbish, plebeian, proletarian, of low parentage, of low origin, of low extraction, of mean parentage, of mean origin, of mean extraction, lowborn, baseborn, earthborn, mushroom, dunghill, risen from the ranks, unknown to fame, obscure, untitled, rustic, uncivilized, loutish, boorish, clownish, churlish, brutish, raffish, rude, unlicked, barbarous, barbarian, barbaric, barbaresque, cockney, born within sound of Bow bells, underling, menial, subaltern, below the salt, dummodo sit dives barbarus ipse placet.