mendicant
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈmɛn.dɪ.kənt/
- Formal
:
mendicante
- You look like a mendicant Indian.
- a mendicant child
Examples
-
It does not follow, however, that all child mendicants are taalibes.
Academic text (2004) -
"The fact that the speaker was the 'life companion,' as he said, of the deceased had to compete with the parallel recognition that no one had come to his memorial service, or rather, no more than five people: a middle-aged couple, two mendicants, and myself.
Fiction book (1991) -
That was the god himself, whereas the average person would simply say, "I saw an old man" or "an old beggar" or "a mendicant."
Academic text (1996) -
His driver was striding back around the Rolls to send the mendicant away with a stream of curses.
Fiction book (1994) -
The most visible face of the Qur'anic school in Dakar - at least for most bureaucrats - is that of the child mendicant.
Academic text (2004) -
In moral terms, the secular clergy objected to mendicants usurping many functions of parish priests.
Academic text (2003) -
Of course, the secular clergy could not object to people giving voluntary alms to approved religious orders, nor could they really object to mendicant begging, as the orders had official papal sanction for their actions.
Academic text (2003) -
Here among the crowds of African and Asian mendicants were petty shopkeepers, a few artisans plying their trades, and office workers going to their anonymous jobs: all of them, presumably, making some contribution in return for which they were fed and housed.
Fiction book (1991) -
Since independence, African politicians have pitilessly framed the plight of urban mendicants as a problem of encombrements humains (human clutter or encumbrance).
Academic text (2004) -
The homeless mendicant sat on the sidewalk, asking passersby for spare change.
Synonyms
77
1.0
A person who asks others for money or food
11
7.4
A person who asks strangers for money in public places
A woman who asks people for money or food in public places
A man who asks people for money or food on the street
How Needy
Surface Forms
Etymology
Mendicant comes from the Latin words mendicare 'to beg' and mendicus 'beggar'. This is why a mendicant can mean a poor person who lives by begging or asking for 'alms'.