beg
pronunciation
How to pronounce beg in British English:
UK [beɡ]
How to pronounce beg in American English:
US [beɡ]
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- Verb:
- call upon in supplication; entreat
- make a solicitation or entreaty for something; request urgently or persistently
- ask to obtain free
Word Origin
- beg
- beg: [OE] Beg first turns up in immediately recognizable form in the 13th century, as beggen, but it seems likely that it goes back ultimately to an Old English verb bedecian ‘beg’. This came from the Germanic base *beth-, from which English also gets bid.=> bid
- beg (v.)
- c. 1200, perhaps from Old English bedecian "to beg," from Proto-Germanic *beth-; or possibly from Anglo-French begger, from Old French begart (see beggar). The Old English word for "beg" was wædlian, from wædl "poverty." Of trained dogs, 1816. As a courteous mode of asking (beg pardon, etc.), first attested c. 1600. To beg the question translates Latin petitio principii, and means "to assume something that hasn't been proven as a basis of one's argument," thus "asking" one's opponent to give something unearned, though more of the nature of taking it for granted without warrant.
Example
- 1. Those words bring nothing but pain and yet we beg for it .
- 2. Having once spurned the imf , euro-zone leaders beg for its help .
- 3. The people from some houses close by here beg there .
- 4. I beg ; open the door -- you will make yourself ill .
- 5. Eg. may I beg of you to do it ?