beg

Formsbegs, begging, begged

Pluralbegs

1. 1
   verbintransitive

   To ask someone for help, often in the form of money.

   Many families were forced to beg during the long famine.

   She begged outside the station for years before finding work.

   Similarpanhandle

   Note

   The oldest, barest kind of asking: no object is needed, only a place and people to ask. The verb's origin is uncertain. It may go back to an unrecorded Old English form shortened from bedecian, itself meaning "to beg." Here the people asked follow from (he begged from passers-by), unlike the pleading sense, which makes them its object.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To plead with someone for help, a favor, or the like; to entreat.

   They begged the council to reconsider its harsh decision.

   He knelt down to beg her forgiveness.

   Similarplead, implore, entreat, supplicate

   Note

   Here the person asked becomes the object: you beg someone to do something, or beg their forgiveness. Older English could make the thing asked for the object instead. The King James Bible of 1611 has Joseph, who "begged the body of Jesus," and Shakespeare's "beg your good will" works the same way. That pattern survives most plainly in I beg your pardon, a fixed apology.

3. 3
   verbtransitive or intransitive

   To obviously lack something, or to be plainly in need of it.

   The crumbling bridge begs urgent repair.

   These findings beg for closer examination.

   Similarneed, require

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To take for granted the very point under dispute, as in the phrase beg the question.

   The proof begs the question, quietly assuming its own conclusion.

   To assume honesty in order to prove honesty is to beg the question.

   Note

   The original meaning of beg the question belongs to logic. An argument begs the question when it quietly assumes the very point it sets out to prove, the fallacy known by its Latin name petitio principii. Careful writers keep the phrase for this use. The "raise a question" meaning is the one that draws objections.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To prompt or give rise to a further question, as in the phrase beg the question.

   The merger begs the question of how many jobs will survive.

   These promises beg the question whether the budget can sustain them.

   Similarraise, prompt

   Note

   The everyday use that many readers count as an error, because the phrase already belongs to the logician's meaning. In formal or edited writing, the safe choice is to write raises the question or prompts the question. Those carry the same sense with no risk of a correction. The opposite move is to set a question aside.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To unintentionally provoke a negative, often violent, response.

   Provocations like his beg a violent answer.

   His arrogance begged a sharp rebuke from the officers.

   Similarinvite, provoke

7. 7
   nouncountable

   An act of begging, or an earnest, imploring request.

   A desperate beg for forgiveness escaped his lips.

   Their final beg for more time fell on deaf ears.

   Similarplea, appeal, entreaty

8. 8
   nounabbreviation

   Abbreviation of beginning.

   Cast on and work the first decrease at the beg of the row.

   Slip the first stitch at the beg of each row for a tidy edge.

   Note

   Pattern shorthand with no connection to the verb. Knitting instructions clip beginning to beg to save space, and it means the initial portion of the work or of a row. DRG's Big Book of Knit Hats & Scarves for Everyone (2005) tells the knitter to work "until work measures 3 inches from beg." Read it as a noun after from, at the or of, never as a request.

9. 9
   noun

   Alternative form of bey.

   The beg collected taxes on behalf of the sultan.

   A powerful beg commanded the garrison along the frontier.

   Note

   A separate word that only looks like the verb. It comes from Proto-Turkic *bēg, a title for the governor of a province in the Ottoman dominions and, elsewhere, for a prince or nobleman. Bey is the main spelling, but beg appears in historical names such as Yaqub Beg (c. 1820–1877). As a noun it takes the plural begs.

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