Definition of "beggary"
beggary
noun
countable and uncountable, plural beggaries
The state of a beggar; indigence, extreme poverty.
Quotations
Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will railAnd say there is no sin but to be rich;And being rich, my virtue then shall beTo say there is no vice but beggary.
c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene i]
Quotations
[…] she looked back to the freedom and the beggary of the old studio in Soho with so much regret, that everybody, herself included, fancied she was consumed with grief for her father.
1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848
adjective
comparative more beggary, superlative most beggary
(obsolete) beggarly
Quotations
beggary counterfeits
c. 1597, Ben. Jonson, A Pleasant Comedy, Called: The Case is Alterd. […], London: […] [Nicholas Okes] for Bartholomew Sutton, and William Barrenger, […], published 1609, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)
This is Love’s beggary right, that now is ours, / When Ladies love, and cannot shew their Powers.
early 1600s, Beaumont and Fletcher (attributed), The Nice Valour, Act V, Scene 3, in The Works of Mr. Francis Beaumont, and Mr. John Fletcher, London: J. & R. Tonson and S. Draper, 1750, Volume 10, p. 359