Begged

How to spell begged

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce begged

What does begged mean?

1. verbAsked for something earnestly or pleaded; or asked for charity.

Begged in a sentence

• She begged her manager for one more day to finish the report.

• The children begged for ice cream on the long drive home.

Where does begged come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense of the verb 'beg', a word whose earliest history is somewhat murky. It appears in Middle English as 'beggen', meaning to ask for charity or to plead, and it may descend from the Old English 'bedecian', meaning to beg, a word of Germanic stock. Some scholars instead trace it to the medieval mendicant brothers known as Beghards or Beguines, religious groups associated with poverty and asking for alms, though that link is debated. Whatever the precise route, by the 1300s 'beg' was firmly established in English for asking earnestly or for soliciting charity. The spelling trap in 'begged' is the doubled g: because 'beg' ends in a single vowel plus a single stressed consonant, that consonant doubles when -ed is added, just as it does in 'hugged' and 'tagged'.

How the word is built

• beg (root verb)
• -ged (past tense; the single final consonant doubles before -ed)