How to Use beggar in a Sentence

beggar

1 of 2 noun
  • I heard you won the contest! You lucky beggar!
  • The next sticky seed source that will show up is beggar’s lice.
    — Calvin Finch, ExpressNews.com, 26 Mar. 2020
  • But jobs are hard to find, and many end up as street beggars.
    — Atlanta Life, ajc, 9 July 2017
  • In the old days beggars were drawn and quartered in that square.
    — George Packer, The Atlantic, 6 Nov. 2025
  • After the beggar left the room, the dog was let off its leash.
    — Rebecca Coffey, Discover Magazine, 4 Sep. 2011
  • One day a good-looking beggar comes to the house seeking help.
    — Kathy Cichon, Elgin Courier-News, 16 May 2017
  • Got a lot of mountains to climb, had to leave some beggars behind.
    — Ilana Kaplan, PEOPLE, 5 Sep. 2025
  • Beware of Greeks bearing a gift horse on which beggars might ride.
    — Paul Muldoon, The New Yorker, 2 Sep. 2019
  • The cities are down, and survivors wander the face of the earth as pirates or beggars.
    — The Economist, 26 Apr. 2018
  • The story about the rich man in hell and the beggar Lazarus in heaven — fake news.
    — Garrison Keillor, The Denver Post, 21 Feb. 2017
  • Hawkers, beggars and street prostitutes are nowhere to be seen.
    — The Economist, 13 July 2017
  • The officer had given him a warning and sent the beggar on his way.
    — Madeleine Marr, miamiherald, 14 May 2018
  • But now, many of those bills could be seen muddied and crumpled up on the street, so worthless that not even street beggars picked them up.
    — Kejal Vyas, WSJ, 21 Aug. 2018
  • The city of Hyderabad filled up potholes and cleared away beggars ahead of her visit.
    — Bloomberg.com, 20 Feb. 2018
  • Gather the fabric tightly around the egg, like a beggar's purse, and secure with a rubber band.
    — Charlyne Mattox, Country Living, 28 Mar. 2023
  • The last symbol a dim garden over-run With Roman beggar-ticks.
    — Sarah Blackwood, The New Republic, 6 Jan. 2022
  • One report claimed Avery died a beggar, cheated out of his fortune.
    — Chris Scott, CNN, 26 May 2017
  • One day Elijah the Prophet, dressed as a beggar, approached their table.
    — Caren Schnur Neile, Sun Sentinel, 17 Apr. 2023
  • Hollywood turned him into a beggar.
    — Lili Anolik, Vanity Fair, 12 Jan. 2026
  • The beggars are a blind man and a 10-year-old boy, the boy hired from his father for this specific purpose.
    — Laila Lalami, New York Times, 1 Jan. 2018
  • The 80-year-old — tall, with broad shoulders and a long white beard — receives all of them the same, minister or beggar.
    — Mujib Mashal, New York Times, 25 Oct. 2019
  • Gobert was chief among the beggars imploring his teammates for a shred of consistency on that end of the floor.
    — Jace Frederick, Twin Cities, 27 Apr. 2026
  • So disguised as a beggar, Odysseus shows up at his palace, and he is not treated very nicely by the suitors who have camped out in his house.
    — Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune, 9 Mar. 2026
  • In December, beggars hawk Santa hats and felt reindeer antlers.
    — Jennifer Hassan, chicagotribune.com, 25 Oct. 2019
  • In an age when millennials can split a drinks tab on their smartphones before leaving the bar, this almost beggars belief.
    — The Economist, 10 Aug. 2019
  • The Beijing government does not only bar beggars and homeless people from staying in the city.
    — Li Yuan, New York Times, 4 May 2023
  • To cybercrime rings, Apple users are a beggar’s banquet of trusting, sitting ducks.
    — Violet Blue, PCWorld, 4 May 2017
  • The crowd includes a businessman, a construction worker, a mother and child, a beggar crouched with a cup and a young man passing him change.
    — Harrison Smith, Washington Post, 9 July 2022
  • When the beggar asked for a bite, one of the sausage keepers rejected her, saying no and flicking one hand in a dismissive shooing gesture.
    — Rebecca Coffey, Discover Magazine, 4 Sep. 2011
  • But the beggar’s banquet of potatoes was only the start of his mischievous contrarianism.
    — João Canziani, Esquire, 22 Jan. 2018

beggar

2 of 2 verb
  • Years of civil war had beggared the country.
  • And both seek a way out, though nothing could be less virtual, or more beggared of thrills, than the path that Charley chooses.
    — Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker, 24 Mar. 2018
  • Through it all, the obscenely wealthy Rauner squats amid his piles of money and blames everyone but himself for beggaring his state.
    — Noah Berlatsky, Chicago Reader, 20 Dec. 2017
  • Despite its oil wealth, years of economic mismanagement have beggared Venezuela.
    — Fabiola Zerpa, Bloomberg.com, 1 Aug. 2017
  • What is already known would beggar the imaginations of Hollywood scriptwriters.
    — National Geographic, 11 June 2016
  • And a Republican regime that promoted economic nationalism would surely enrich its friends and beggar its enemies.
    — David Goldfield, New York Times, 21 Apr. 2017
  • To imagine that a country with an economy smaller than Canada’s or Italy’s could leverage a superpower ten times wealthier beggared the imagination.
    — Jonathan Chait, Daily Intelligencer, 8 May 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'beggar.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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