Skip to main content
beggar

beggar

60 1.0
A person who asks others for money or food
  • noun
  • /ˈbɛɡər/
: mendigo
  • Many pedestrians hurried past the beggar sitting on the corner, hoping for a few coins.
  • a blind beggar
  • a starving beggar
  • street beggars

And the theme of beggars can't be choosers is always there.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • But the people have a proverb, which is very close to "Beggars can't be choosers."

    Fiction book (1993)
  • We'd be forced to live like beggars.

  • Now help me not to be a beggar anymore.

  • Do you think it's helpful to give a beggar fifty pence?

  • Never before did we have beggars on the street, in subway tunnels, in train stations.

    Academic text (1991)
  • I'm sitting on the balcony, and there's a blind beggar with a little girl guiding him.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • "For a ruble?" The beggar dug a change purse from his shirt and produced a coin.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • My mother told me that in India, the beggars are surrounded by an unattainable food source: the cows.

    Academic text (2008)
  • Then winter light in a doorway and on the stone doorstep A beggar shivering in silhouette.

  • The kind woman stopped to give some food to the beggar who looked hungry and cold.

Synonyms

vagrant
vsbeggar
26 7.7

A person who has no home and moves from place to place, often begging

focuses on living by asking others rather than homelessness or wandering
panhandler
vsbeggar
  • US
10 7.4

A person who asks strangers for money in public places

is the general term for someone who asks, not only in streets
schnorrer
vsbeggar
  • Offensive
1 9.9

A person who often asks others for money or food without giving anything back

is about living by asking due to poverty rather than opportunistic freeloading
mendicant
vsbeggar
  • Formal
1 9.9

A person who lives by begging for money or food

is the neutral everyday term rather than formal or technical
mump
vsbeggar
  • Archaic
1 9.9

An old word for a person who begs for food or money

is the modern everyday word rather than an old dialect form
beggarman
vsbeggar
1 8.2

A man who asks people for money or food on the street

is the gender-neutral term not limited to males
beggarwoman
vsbeggar
7.6

A woman who asks people for money or food in public places

is the gender-neutral term not limited to females

Antonyms

2 6.0

A person who has a lot of money

Compounds

A two-player card game where each player tries to win all the other player's cards

1 9.9

Small sticky seeds that cling to animal fur or clothes

9.9

A plant with yellow flowers and small prickly fruits that stick to fur or clothing

9.9

Small hooked seeds that cling to clothing or animal fur

A plan by one country to help itself by hurting other countries' trade

9.9

A plan to help one country by hurting other countries' trade

A plant with yellow flowers from Europe and Asia whose seeds have small hooks that stick to fur and clothes

swampy beggar-ticks
  • Specialized
9.9

A plant that grows in wet places with yellow flowers and seeds that stick to clothes

A plant found in wet places with leaves in three parts and small yellow flowers whose seeds stick to clothes

How Poor

destitute
22 6.5
beggar
60 1.0
poor person
8 1.0

Surface Forms

beggar singular
beggars plural

Morphology

beggar = beg (transparent) = beg + er

A straightforward agentive formation: 'beg' + '-er' yields 'person who begs', which is immediately clear to learners.

Etymology

Beggar comes from the simple verb beg, which means 'to ask', so a beggar is literally someone who asks others for money or food.