# beg

Pronunciation: say "BEG" /bɛɡ/

## Verb

1. To ask someone for help, often in the form of money.
   - Simple: To ask people for money or help, often out in public.
   - _Many families were forced to beg during the long famine._
   - _She begged outside the station for years before finding work._
2. To plead with someone for help, a favor, or the like; to entreat.
   - Simple: To ask someone very strongly for something you really want.
   - _They begged the council to reconsider its harsh decision._
   - _He knelt down to beg her forgiveness._
3. To obviously lack something, or to be plainly in need of it.
   - Simple: To clearly need something, or to be obviously missing it.
   - _The crumbling bridge begs urgent repair._
   - _These findings beg for closer examination._
4. To take for granted the very point under dispute, as in the phrase beg the question.
   - Simple: To treat a claim as already true when proving it is the whole point.
   - _The proof begs the question, quietly assuming its own conclusion._
   - _To assume honesty in order to prove honesty is to beg the question._
5. To prompt or give rise to a further question, as in the phrase beg the question.
   - Simple: To make people naturally want to ask a certain question.
   - _The merger begs the question of how many jobs will survive._
   - _These promises beg the question whether the budget can sustain them._
6. To unintentionally provoke a negative, often violent, response.
   - Simple: To bring a bad or violent reaction onto yourself without meaning to.
   - _Provocations like his beg a violent answer._
   - _His arrogance begged a sharp rebuke from the officers._

## Noun

7. An act of begging, or an earnest, imploring request.
   - Simple: An act of asking for something in a strong, pleading way.
   - _A desperate beg for forgiveness escaped his lips._
   - _Their final beg for more time fell on deaf ears._
8. Abbreviation of beginning. — Abbreviation of beginning.
   - Simple: Abbreviation of beginning. A short way to write "beginning" in patterns and notes.
   - _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._
9. Alternative form of bey. — Alternative form of bey.
   - Simple: Alternative form of bey. Another spelling for the title of a Turkish or Ottoman governor.
   - _The beg collected taxes on behalf of the sultan._
   - _A powerful beg commanded the garrison along the frontier._

## Verb

10. To petition for guardianship of someone, or to ask that a guardian be appointed for them. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To ask a court to make you the legal guardian of someone.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–7, 10** — Inherited from Middle English beggen, of uncertain origin. It may come from Old English forms related to bedecian ("to beg"), and ultimately from a Proto-West Germanic root meaning "plea, petition, prayer" (the source of English bead), all tied to the root of English bid. Another theory treats the verb as a backformation from beggar.
**Meaning 9** — From Proto-Turkic *bēg.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/beg (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).