beggary

/ˈbɛɡəɹi/

beggary noun: the state of a beggar; indigence, extreme poverty.

Noun

beggary (countable and uncountable, plural beggaries)

The state of a beggar; indigence, extreme poverty.
- Happily some haplesse man hath conscience,
  And for his conscience lives in beggary.c. 1589–1590 (date written), Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published...
- Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
  And say there is no sin but to be rich;
  And being rich, my virtue then shall be
  To say there is no vice but beggary.c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
The fact or action of begging.
- […] the landlady […] ushered them into a large garret where twenty or thirty people of all ages and both sexes lay and dozed away the day, choosing the evening and night for their trades of beggary, thieving, or prostitution.1848, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 38, in Mary Barton
- […] perhaps he would abandon beggary when there was no poor fool about to beg from.1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter 8, in Capricornia, New York: Appleton, page 126
Beggarly appearance.
- […] she looked back to the freedom and the beggary of the old studio in Soho with so much regret, that everybody, herself included, fancied she was consumed with grief for her father.1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC

Adjective

beggary (comparative more beggary, superlative most beggary)

(obsolete) beggarly
- beggary counterfeitsc. 1597, Ben. Jonson, A Pleasant Comedy, Called: The Case is Alterd. […], London: […] [Nicholas Okes] for Bartholomew Sutton, and William Barrenger, […], published 1609, →OCLC, (please specify the...
- early 1600s, Beaumont and Fletcher (attributed), The Nice Valour, Act V, Scene 3, in The Works of Mr. Francis Beaumont, and Mr. John Fletcher, London: J. & R. Tonson and S. Draper, 1750, Volume 10, p. 359,
  This is Love’s beggary right, that now is ours,
  When Ladies love, and cannot shew their...

beggary meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

beggary in Tamil

பிச்சை எடுத்தல்

beggary in Urdu

درویشی, فقیری, گدا گری

beggary in Malayalam

beggary: ഭിക്ഷ bhikṣa, പിച്ച picca

beggary in Kannada

ಭಿಕ್ಷಾವೃತ್ತಿ, ಭಿಕ್ಷಾಟನೆ

Forms of beggary

Noun
plural	beggaries
Adjective
comparative	more beggary
superlative	most beggary

Origin of beggary

From beggar + -y.

Questions about beggary

What does beggary mean?: Beggary means the state of a beggar; indigence, extreme poverty.
What is beggary in Tamil?: Beggary in Tamil is பிச்சை எடுத்தல். See Beggary meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is beggary?: Beggary can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce beggary?: Beggary is pronounced /ˈbɛɡəɹi/.
What is the plural of beggary?: The plural of beggary is beggaries.

Words near beggary in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: beggary (page history and authors); beggary (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); beggary (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); പിച്ച (Malayalam) (page history and authors); beggary (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-beggary.wav.

Cite this entry: “beggary.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beggary. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.