Abraham man
/ˈeɪ.bɹəˌhæm mæn/
Abraham man noun: a mentally ill beggar.
Noun
Abraham man (plural Abraham men)
- A mentally ill beggar.
- Any beggar who pretends to be ill, physically or mentally, to obtain alms.
- An Abraham man is he that walketh bare armed, and bare legged, and fayneth hymselfe mad, and caryeth a packe of wool, or a stycke with baken on it, or such lyke toy, and nameth himselfe poore Tom.1561, John Awdely, The Fraternitye of Vacabondes
- Of all the mad rascalls (that are of this wing) the Abraham-man is the most phantastick: The fellow (quoth this old Lady of the Lake unto me) that sat halfe naked (at table to day) from the girdle upward, is the best Abraham-man that ever came to my house and the notablest villaine: he sweares he...1608, Thomas Dekker, The Bel-Man of London, J. M. Dent & Sons, published 1905, An Abraham-man, pages 98–99
Synonyms of Abraham man
Forms of Abraham man
| plural | Abraham men |
|---|---|
| alternative form | Abraham-man |
| alternative form | Abrahamman |
| alternative form | Abram man |
| alternative form | Abram-man |
| alternative form | Abramman |
Origin of Abraham man
From patients claiming, genuinely or not, to be temporarily discharged from the Abraham ward at Bethlem Royal Hospital (also known as Bedlam), a psychiatric hospital in London, for the purpose of begging. Possibly an allusion to a story in Luke 16, in which the beggar Lazarus ends up in Abraham's bosom. First use appears c. 1561 in The Fraternity of Vagabonds (1561) by John Awdely.
Words formed from Abraham man
Questions about Abraham man
- What does Abraham man mean?
- Abraham man means a mentally ill beggar.
- What part of speech is Abraham man?
- Abraham man is a noun.
- How do you pronounce Abraham man?
- Abraham man is pronounced /ˈeɪ.bɹəˌhæm mæn/ (US).
- What is the plural of Abraham man?
- The plural of Abraham man is Abraham men.
Words near Abraham man in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Abraham man (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-Abraham man.wav.
Cite this entry: “Abraham man.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/abraham_man. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.