The AI-powered English dictionary
plural beggars
A person who begs. quotations examples
“ […] They talk of you as if you were Croesus—and I expect the beggars sponge on you unconscionably.” And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes.
1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Odysseus has returned to his home disguised as a beggar.
1983, Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Sophist: The Drama of Original & Image, St. Augustine’s Press, p. 62
A person suffering from extreme poverty. quotations examples
I'm to be a poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when I might be rolling in a coach!
1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883
(colloquial, sometimes endearing) A mean or wretched person; a scoundrel. examples
(UK) A minced oath for bugger. examples
third-person singular simple present beggars, present participle beggaring, simple past and past participle beggared
(transitive) To make a beggar of someone; impoverish. examples
(transitive, figurative) To exhaust the resources of; to outdo or go beyond. quotations examples
`Now,' answered Ayesha, with proud humility - `now when my lord doth speak thus royally and give with so free a hand, it cannot become me to lag behind in words, and be beggared of my generosity.'
1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887
It was a scene of such beauty it caught all his attention. / Some things beggar likeness, he thought.
1965, Frank Herbert, Dune, 1st edition, page 109
Taking the ontological temperature of today and of the pre-revolutionary 18th century, Mr. Kundera finds that the speed we love has beggared us of pleasure.
1996 July 7, Angeline Goreau, “Speed”, in The New York Times