▪ I. beg, v.
(bɛg)
Forms: 3 beggen, 4–7 begge, 4–6 begg, 6 (Sc.) bayg, 5– beg.
[Of uncertain origin: see note below.]
1. To ask alms or by way of alms. a. trans. To ask (bread, money, etc.) in alms or as a charitable gift; to procure (one's living) by begging.
| a 1225 Ancr. R. 356 Scheome ich telle uorte..beggen ase on harlot..his liueneð. 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. vi. 195 Blynde and bedreden..þat seten to begge silver. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 28/2 Beggyn bodely fode. c 1500 Bk. Mayd Emlyn xxvii. in Poet. Tracts (Percy Soc.) 28 Longe or she were dede, She wente to begge her brede. 1611 Bible Ps. xxxvii. 25 Yet haue I not seene the righteous forsaken, nor his seede begging bread. 1805 Scott Last Minstr. 24 He begged his bread from door to door. |
b. intr. To ask alms; esp. to ask alms habitually, to live by asking alms. Const. absol.; of, from, formerly at, a person; for alms.
| [c 897 K. ælfred Gregory's Past. 284 Hit is swiðe wel be ðæm ᵹecweden ðæt he eft bedeciᵹe on sumera, & him mon ðonne noht ne selle.] a 1300 Cursor M. 4708 Þai war sa fele þat begand [v.r. beggand] yode. 1382 Wyclif John ix. 8 He that sat and beggide. 1386 Chaucer Sompn. T. 4 Ther wente a lymytour aboute To preche and eek to begge. a 1450 York Myst., Barbers 8 What riche man gose from dore to dore To begge at hym þat has right noght. 1530 Palsgr. 446/1 I begge for the guylde of saynt Anthonye. 1562 J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 138 Thou begst at wrong doore, and so hast begd longe. 1601 Shakes. Per. i. iv. 41 Those palates..Would now be glad of bread, and beg for it. 1602 Warner Alb. Eng. ix. xlvii. (1612) 218 Fring'd and ymbroidred Petticoats now begge [i.e. are worn by beggars]. a 1617 Hieron Wks. II. 392 We haue an ordinary saying..‘They which begge must not choose.’ 1718 Lady M. W. Montague Lett. II. liv. 80 While the post-horses are changed, the whole town comes out to beg. 1856 Froude Hist. Eng. I. i. 74 Licences to beg were at that time granted. |
2. transf. To ask as a favour or act of grace; hence to ask humbly, earnestly, supplicatingly; to crave, entreat. (With many const.: cf. ask.) a. trans. Const. of, from (formerly at). Also in colloq. phr. to beg, borrow, or steal.
The early instances are closely connected with sense 1.
| [1340 Hampole Pr. Consc. 3219 Þai may nathyng begg ne borowe, To help þam, þat þai war out broght [of purgatory]. c 1386 [see indigence 2 a]. 1399 Langl. Rich. Redeless iii. 149 Beggith and borwith of burgeis in tounes Ffurris of ffoyne, and oþer felle-ware.] |
| 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531), The miserable nature of man..beggeth and craueth of god socour and relefe. 1534 Tindale Matt. xxvii. 58 Ioseph..went to Pilate and begged the body of Iesus. 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. i. i. 41, I beg the ancient priuiledge of Athens. 1605 Bk. Com. Prayer, Gunpowd. Tr., All which we humbly beg for the sake of our blessed Lord and Saviour. 1667 Pepys Diary (1879) IV. 239 All the world will believe, that we do go to beg a peace. 1711 Steele Spect. No. 168 ¶11, I beg the Favour of you..to send us Word. 1746 H. Walpole Corr. 12 June, I have three favours to beg of you. 1752 C. Lennox Fem. Quix. I. ii. ix. 116 She refused to give him a glorious scarf which she wore, though he begged it on his knees. |
| 1760 Sterne Tr. Shandy III. xxxviii. 177 He has taken in, Sir, the whole subject..begging, borrowing, and stealing, as he went along. 1794 F. Burney Let. 22 Mar. (1905) V. 240 He has been drawing a plan for it, which I intend to beg, borrow, or steal (all one), to give you some idea how seriously he studies. 1840 Carlyle Heroes iii. 141 The Florentines begged back his [Dante's] body..the Ravenna people would not give it. 1859 Macmillan's Mag. Dec. 118/1 Not because they want to beg, borrow, or steal thoughts which are not theirs. |
b. absol. or intr.; with same const.
| 1588 Shakes. L.L.L. v. ii. 207 How I would make him fawne, and begge, and seeke. 1609 Skene Reg. Maj., Stat. Robt. II, 48 Na Schiref..sall dar or presume to begge..fra the inhabitants of the cuntrie. 1718 Pope Iliad i. 19 Apollo's awful ensigns grace his hands: By these he begs. 1845 Hood Last Man xxxvii, In vain My desperate fancy begs. |
c. To beg for a thing.
| 1576 Fleming tr. Caius' Dogs in Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1673) 139 Dogs..are taught..to beg for their meat. 1588 Shakes. Tit. A. i. i. 455 Kneele in the streetes, and beg for grace in vaine. 1649 Bp. Reynolds Hosea iii. 11, I must..begge for pardon. 1876 Green Short Hist. iv. §3 (1882) 177 Single-handed [he] forced him to beg for mercy. |
d. To beg to do a thing, or that a thing may be.
| 1576 Thynne in Animadv. (1875) Introd. p. lvi, I most humbly..do submytt my cause and my selfe, begginge, uppon the knees of my harte, to come before your Lordship. 1591 Shakes. 1 Hen. VI, iv. i. 72, I should haue begg'd I might haue bene employd. 1605 ― Lear ii. iv. 157 On my knees I begge, That you'll vouchsafe me Rayment, Bed, and Food. 1654 Earl of Orrery Parthenissa (1676) 679, I passionately beg'd to wait upon him. 1767 Wilkes Corr. (1805) III. 197, I shall very soon beg to call the public attention to some points of national importance. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. III. 613 Shrewsbury begged that..he might be appointed. |
† e. To beg of a person for a thing. Obs.
| 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. iii. ii. 108 If she be by, Beg of her for remedy. |
f. To beg of (formerly at) a person to do a thing, or that a thing may be.
| 1604 Shakes. Oth. v. ii. 229 He begg'd of me to steale 't. 1665 Evelyn Mem. (1857) III. 174 Our prisoners..beg at us, as a mercy, to knock them on the head. 1769 Junius Lett. xxi. 99, I must beg of you to print a few lines in explanation. 1799 Southey Eng. Eclog. vii. Wks. III. 35 [He] would come..and beg of me To tell him stories of his ancestors. 1842 Tennyson Dora 121, I will beg of him to take thee back. |
g. trans. To beg a person to do a thing.
| 1675 Locke Let. Person of Qual. Wks. 1794 IX. 207 He begged me to consider..whether in such a case, etc. 1711 Addison Spect. No. 117 ¶5, I begged my friend Sir Roger to go with me. 1778 H. Bowman Trav. 266, I begged him to explain himself. 1876 Green Short Hist. iii. §5 (1882) 142 The king..begged him to write the story of the day's proceedings. |
h. Card-playing. In All Fours (U.S. Seven-up), to ask for a point, or three additional cards and a new trump (said of the elder hand).
| 1793 Sporting Mag. II. 160/1 The Duke of York and Lord Barrymore were playing the game of All Fours... The Duke..overlooked his cards, and..begged one, which was granted, though he held the ace, deuce, and jack of trumps. 1800 Hoyle & Jones Hoyle's Games Improved 308 The Game of All-Fours... If the eldest [hand] don't like his cards, he may, for once in a hand, say, I beg, when the dealer must either give a point or three more cards to each..player. 1897 R. F. Foster Complete Hoyle 289 If the eldest hand is not satisfied, he says: I beg; and the dealer, after examining his own hand, has the option of giving him a point or running the cards. Ibid. 290 Begging is resorted to by a player who holds no trumps. |
i. Said of a dog trained to sit up and hold up its fore paws when told to beg.
| 1816 Sporting Mag. XLVIII. 23/2 He began to teach me [sc. a puppy] to beg, and to fetch and carry. 1837 Jas. Prior Life Goldsmith II. 33 Teaching a favourite dog to sit upright upon its haunches, or as is commonly said, to beg. 1854 J. G. Wood Anim. Life 98 Four cats..had taught themselves the art of begging like a dog... They waited until they saw the dog sit up in the begging position, and immediately assumed the same attitude. 1884 Century Mag. Dec. 198/2 To squat back and raise his front legs from the ground, much in the position of a ‘begging’ poodle. 1927 E. V. Lucas More I see of Men iv. 32 He begs even when there is no meal in progress. |
3. a. In beg pardon, beg excuse, beg leave, etc.: beside the strict sense as in 2, the whole expression is often merely a courteous or apologetic mode of asking what is expected, or even of taking as a matter of course.
| 1600 Shakes. A.Y.L. iii. v. 6 Falls not the axe vpon the humbled neck, But first begs pardon. 1602 ― Ham. iv. vii. 45 To-morrow shall I begge leaue to see your Kingly Eyes. 1711 Addison Spect. No. 74 ¶2, I must however beg Leave to dissent from so great an Authority. Ibid. ¶15, I shall only beg Pardon for such a Profusion of Latin Quotations. 1734 Watts Reliq. Juv. (1789) 270 In the business of Transubstantiation, he begs your excuse. 1754 Chatham Lett. Nephew iv. 22 There is likewise a particular attention required to contradict with good manners; such as, begging pardon, begging leave to doubt, and such like phrases. 1802 M. Edgeworth Moral T. (1816) I. iii. 17 You begged my pardon. Mod. I beg your pardon; I did not quite catch what you said. I have received your letter, and beg leave to say in reply{ddd} |
b. ellipt. for beg leave.
| 1767 Wilkes Corr. (1805) III. 197, I shall very soon beg to call the public attention to some points of national importance. 1898 Westm. Gaz. 29 Oct. 7/3 You say, ‘I beg to take exception’, which, of course, is not English at all. You mean, ‘I beg (leave) to take exception’. |
c. Also ellipt. in epistolary formulas of goodwill: to desire to send, to offer.
| 1755 H. Walpole Let. 7 Jan. (1903) III. 277 He would..beg his compliments to Miss Montagu. 1816 A. Constable Let. 9 July in J. Constable's Corr. (1962) 137, I am glad to hear so good an account of Miss B's health, I beg best regards. 1836 Dickens Let. 27 Feb. (1965) I. 134 Begging my best remembrances to Mrs. Thomson. 1839 ― Let. ? Apr. (1965) I. 546 Begging my best compliments at home. |
† 4. In Anglo-French and probably also in English ‘begger to beg’ was used euphemistically in sense of ‘exact as a benevolence.’
| 1292 Britton i. xxii. §11 Et de ceux qi coillent garbes en Aust, agneus et purceus, et issi vount begaunt, et les fount norir en lour baillies al grevaunce del people. Ibid. §15 Touz nos autres, qe gentz de religioum et autres gentz grevent..par begger [v.r. beguigner] merrym ou fustz ou autre chose a eus. |
5. † a. to beg a person: to petition the Court of Wards (established by Hen. VIII, and suppressed under Chas. II) for the custody of a minor, an heiress, or an idiot, as feudal superior or as having interest in the matter; hence also fig. to beg (any one) for a fool or idiot: to take him for, set him down as, a fool. Obs.
| 1584 D. Fenner Def. Ministers (1587) 51 Then would you haue proued vs asses, not begged vs for innocents. 1589 Hay any Work 71 It is time to begg the for a swagg. 1596 Harington Met. Ajax 46 He proued a wiser man by much, then he that begged him. 1604 T. Wright Passions iii. i. 81 He may be begd for an ideot. 1636 Davenant Wits in Dodsley VIII. 509 (N.), I fear you will be begg'd at court, unless you come off thus. 1639 J. Mayne City Match ii. vi, And that a great man Did mean to beg you for—his daughter. 1696 Stillingfl. 12 Serm. ii. 59 That we may not therefore seem to beg all wicked men for fools. 1736 Hervey Mem. II. 143 Moyle either deserved to be..begged for a fool, or hanged for a knave. |
b. to beg off (trans., and intr. for refl.): to obtain by entreaty the release of (any one), or of oneself, from a penalty, or liability.
| 1741 Richardson Pamela II. 292 What, said she, is the Creature begging me off from Insult? a 1884 Mod. He promised at first to go with us, but he has since begged off. 1854 E. Ruskin Let. 28 Feb. in M. Lutyens Millais & Ruskins (1967) 145 What does John do but..say that he wishes to beg off to dine with his Father and Mother. 1966 Amer. Speech XLI. 174 He begged off because he had just moved from his librarianship at Kassel. |
6. To take for granted without warrant; esp. in to beg the question: to take for granted the matter in dispute, to assume without proof.
| 1581 W. Clarke in Confer. iv. (1584) F f iij, I say this is still to begge the question. 1687 Settle Refl. Dryden 13 Here hee's at his old way of Begging the meaning. 1680 Burnet Rochester (1692) 82 This was to assert or beg the thing in Question. 1788 Reid Aristotle's Log. v. §3. 118 Begging the question is when the thing to be proved is assumed in the premises. 1852 Rogers Ecl. Faith 251 Many say it is begging the point in dispute. 1870 Bowen Logic ix. 294 The vulgar equivalent for petitio principii is begging the question. |
7. To make (one's way) begging.
| 1840 Dickens Old C. Shop xliv, To-morrow we will beg our way to some quiet part of the country. |
[The notion that beg had to do with the bag carried by a beggar, as if he were a ‘bagger,’ finds no etymological corroboration. The Flemish beggen appealed to by Littré under Beguin has no existence (Cosijn). Mr. H. Sweet has suggested that ME. beggen might be worn down from the rare OE. bedecian ‘to beg,’ found once (in Past. Care), and obscurely connected with Gothic bidagwa ‘beggar,’ f. bidjan ‘to ask, beg.’ This has much to recommend it; but the phonetic connexion of beggen and bedecian is by no means established, and there is the serious historical difficulty that no connecting links are to be found, there being no trace of the word in any form between K. ælfred's bedecian before 900 and the regular use of the modern beg and beggar in the 13th c. Perhaps the most likely derivation is from the OF. begart, begard, and begar, med.L. begardus = Beghard, or its synonym beguin, beguin, and deriv. vb. beguigner, beguiner ‘to act the beguin.’ It is known that the Beghards or Beguins were, or soon became, a lay mendicant order, and that in the 13th c. mendicants calling themselves, or called, by these names, swarmed over Western Europe, ‘laici, qui sub prætextis cujusdam religionis fictæ Begardos se appellant..qui extra religionem approbatam validam mendicantes discurrunt’ (Council of Treves 1310). It is notable that in one of the two passages where Britton has Anglo-French begger to beg (see 4 above), the reading of two 14th c. MSS. is beguigner, showing that this was at any rate identical in sense with ‘beg.’ So also we find in Sym. de Hesdin a 1380 (Godef.), ‘il n'y eust pas tant de begars et de begardes qui mengassent leur pain en oiseuse’ (there would not have been so many begards, male and female, to eat their bread in idleness), which strongly suggests the Eng. beggar. About this time the words beggare and beggen arose in English: the exact process of their formation, and their actual relation to each other can only be conjectured: possibly begg-en was shortened from beguin-er, possibly it was taken from begg-are, and this directly from OF. begar above. The -are of the Ancren Riwle proves nothing, being the regular agent ending, as seen in bacbitare, demare, reuare, etc.]
▪ II. † beg, n.1 Obs.
Also 7 becg.
[a. Osmanli beg ‘prince, governor,’ now pronounced as bey: see bey, and cf. begum.]
A bey. Now only used as part of Eastern names. beg beg = beglerbeg.
| 1686 Lond. Gaz. No. 2198/3 The Grand Visier had sent a Becg..to desire a treaty. 1687 Ibid. No. 2285/2 The Beg Beg that commanded there..yielded at Discretion. 1818 Jas. Mill Brit. India (1848) II. 254 Togrul Beg..offered himself as a leader and bond of union to the Turks. |
beglic, -lik, -luc, province of a bey, beylic.
| 1614 Selden Titles Hon. 377 Beg is Lord..and Begluc is the Dignitie of the [Beg]. |
▪ III. beg, n.2
[f. beg v.]
a. An act of begging.
| 1814 J. Mayne Jrnl. 13 Sept. (1909) iii. 60 This was an invocation to some saint for a prosperous beg. 1912 Gambier-Parry Alleg. of Land iv. 134 Letters simply mean begs, bothers, and bills. 1920 Punch 30 June 508/1 Agenda and minutes and constituents' grievances, and charitable appeals and ordinary begs. |
b. spec. in All Fours (U.S. Seven-up) (see beg v. 2 h).
| 1897 R. F. Foster Complete Hoyle 289 (Seven-up) No second beg is allowed, but when only two play, if either player is dissatisfied with the new trump he may propose to bunch the cards. |