Word.ws English Dictionary

beggar's-lice

beggar's-lice noun: any of various plants, including Galium aparine and (US) Hackelia virginiana, which stick to clothing.

Noun

beggar's-lice pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) Any of various plants, including Galium aparine and (US) Hackelia virginiana, which stick to clothing.
    • I had gotten beggar lice and twigs and stuff all over me, inside my clothes and shoes and all, and then I happened to look around and I had my hand right on a bunch of poison oak..1929, William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

Forms of beggar's-lice

alternative formbeggars'-lice
alternative formbeggar lice

Questions about beggar's-lice

What does beggar's-lice mean?
Beggar's-lice means any of various plants, including Galium aparine and (US) Hackelia virginiana, which stick to clothing.
What part of speech is beggar's-lice?
Beggar's-lice is a noun.

Words near beggar's-lice in the dictionary

  1. beggar the question
  2. beggar's buttons
  3. beggar's chicken
  4. beggar's purse
  5. beggar's ticks
  6. beggar's-lice
  7. beggar-my-neighbor
  8. beggar-my-neighbour
  9. beggar-thy-neighbor
  10. beggar-thy-neighbour
  11. beggar-ticks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beggar's-lice (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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Cite this entry: “beggar's-lice.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beggar%27s-lice. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.