beggar

Etymology

From Middle English beggere, beggare, beggar (“beggar”), from Middle English beggen (“to beg”), equivalent to beg + -ar. Alternative etymology derives Middle English beggere, beggare, beggar from Old French begart, originally a member of the Beghards, a lay brotherhood of mendicants in the Low Countries, from Middle Dutch beggaert (“mendicant”), with pejorative suffix (see -ard); the order is said to be named after the priest Lambert le Bègue of Liège (French for “Lambert the Stammerer”).

noun

1. A person who begs.
   Odysseus has returned to his home disguised as a beggar. 1983, Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Sophist: The Drama of Original & Image, St. Augustine’s Press, p. 62
2. A person suffering from extreme poverty.
3. (colloquial, sometimes endearing) A mean or wretched person; a scoundrel.
   What does that silly beggar think he's doing?
4. (UK) A minced oath for bugger.

verb

1. (transitive) To make a beggar of someone; impoverish.
2. (transitive, figurative) To exhaust the resources of; to outdo or go beyond.
   It was a scene of such beauty it caught all his attention. / Some things beggar likeness, he thought. 1965, Frank Herbert, Dune, 1st edition, page 109
   Taking the ontological temperature of today and of the pre-revolutionary 18th century, Mr. Kundera finds that the speed we love has beggared us of pleasure. 1996-07-07, Angeline Goreau, “Speed”, in The New York Times, →ISSN