beggarliness

English

Etymology

beggarly +‎ -ness

Noun

beggarliness (uncountable)

  1. (rare) The state or characteristic of being or resembling a beggar; destitution.
    • 1906, Frances Hodgson Burnett, chapter 18, in The Shuttle:
      Angry duns, beggarliness of income, scarcity of the necessaries and luxuries which dignity of rank demanded, the indifference and slights of one's equals, and the ignoring of one's existence by exalted persons, were all hideous enough to Lord Mount Dunstan.
    • 1913, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter 8, in The Day of Days:
      And suddenly the fifty-cent tip previously bestowed upon the servitor seemed, to one unexpectedly fallen heir to the princely fortune then in P. Sybarite's pockets, the very nadir of beggarliness.
    • 2008 January 16, “Nigeria: Wealth is Not a Measure of Achievement”, in AllAfrica.com:
      While the ant had enough in store to last him the famine, the grasshopper was reduced to beggarliness!
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