Beg

How to spell beg

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce beg

What does beg mean?

1. verbTo ask for something earnestly or humbly, or to ask for money or food as charity.

Beg in a sentence

• The children would beg for an extra hour before bedtime.

• He had to beg his manager for a few days of unpaid leave.

Where does beg come from?

Language of origin: Other

The word beg first appears in Middle English as 'beggen', meaning 'to ask for alms or charity'. Its deeper origin is debated, but the most widely accepted account links it to the medieval religious group called the Beghards, lay brothers in the Low Countries who lived by asking for charity; their name may in turn derive from the same source as the female 'Beguines'. From the medieval sense of asking for alms, beg broadened to mean asking earnestly or humbly for anything, whether money, mercy, or a favour. Because the word is short and built from a single closed syllable, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable, with the doubled consonant appearing only in inflected forms such as 'begged' and 'begging'. The familiar phrase 'beg the question' preserves an older logical sense of assuming the very point under dispute.

How the word is built

• beg (single root, no affixes); from Middle English beggen