Word.ws English Dictionary

begging off

begging off is the present participle and gerund of beg off.

Meaning of beg off

Verb

beg off (third-person singular simple present begs off, present participle begging off, simple past and past participle begged off)

  1. (idiomatic) To obtain somebody's permission to skip or cancel an event that one has previously arranged with them.
    • I wonder if I can beg off going to the meeting that day, since it will take me an extra two hours out of my way.
    Synonyms:
    cry off

Questions about begging off

What is begging off the present participle and gerund of?
Begging off is the present participle and gerund of beg off.

Words near begging off in the dictionary

  1. begging bowl
  2. begging bowls
  3. begging for one's life
  4. begging letter
  5. begging letters
  6. begging off
  7. begging someone's pardon
  8. begging the question
  9. begging to differ
  10. begging your pardon
  11. beggingly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: begging off (page history and authors); beg off (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: “begging off.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/begging_off. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.