beggar

/'begə/

Thân thiện

Definition

1. Noun:

   • A person who lives by asking for money or food: A "beggar" is someone, typically very poor, who solicits donations from others, often in public places.
   • (Informal) A person, often used in a familiar or slightly contemptuous way: In casual speech, "beggar" can be used to refer to a person, especially a man or child, sometimes with a tone of playful annoyance or affection.

2. Verb:

   • To reduce someone to poverty: To "beggar" someone is to make them extremely poor.
   • To be beyond the limits or capacity of something; to make something seem inadequate: This figurative use means to defy or exhaust the possibilities of description, comparison, or resources.

Usage Examples

• Noun:

  • The old beggar sat on the street corner with a cup.
  • Come here, you little beggar! (informal, addressing a mischievous child)

• Verb:

  • The war beggared the population, leaving many without homes.
  • The beauty of the sunset beggars description. (meaning it is so beautiful it is nearly impossible to describe)

Advanced Usage

• "Beggars can't be choosers": This idiom means that people who are in a position of needing help must accept what is offered and cannot be selective.

  • I don't love this old coat, but beggars can't be choosers.

• "To beggar belief/description": This phrase is used to say that something is so extreme, surprising, or incredible that it is hard to believe or describe.

  • The government's incompetence beggars belief.
  • The scale of the destruction beggars all description.

Variants and Related Words

• Beggarly (adj): Resembling or characteristic of a beggar; pitifully inadequate or meager.

  • He was paid a beggarly sum for his hard work.

• Beggary (n): The state of being a beggar; extreme poverty.

  • The family was reduced to beggary after the famine.

Synonyms

• Noun: Mendicant, panhandler, pauper, tramp.
• Verb (to impoverish): Ruin, pauperize, bankrupt.
• Verb (to defy): Defy, surpass, exceed.

Phrasal Verbs

(The word "beggar" is not commonly used in phrasal verb constructions. Its verbal use is typically transitive and formal/literary.)

Related Idioms

• "To know something as well as a beggar knows his bag": An old idiom meaning to know something very thoroughly or intimately. (Note: This idiom is now quite rare.)
  • He knows the rules of this game as well as a beggar knows his bag.

Học thuật

Noun

1. a pauper who lives by begging

Verb

1. reduce to beggary
2. be beyond the resources of
   • This beggars description!

Từ đồng nghĩa

• mendicant
• pauperize
• pauperise