BEG

A title of honor in Turkey and in some other parts of the East; a bey.

To ask earnestly for; to entreat or supplicate for; to beseech. I do beg your good will in this case. Shak. [Joseph] begged the body of Jesus. Matt. xxvii. 58.

To ask for as a charity, esp. to ask for habitually or from house to house. Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. Ps. xxxvii. 25.

To make petition to; to entreat; as, to beg a person to grant a favor.

To take for granted; to assume without proof.

To ask to be appointed guardian for, or to ask to have a guardian appointed for. Else some will beg thee, in the court of wards. Harrington. Hence: To beg (one) for a fool, to take him for a fool. I beg to, is an elliptical expression for I beg leave to; as, I beg to inform you. -- To bag the question, to assume that which was to be proved in a discussion, instead of adducing the proof or sustaining the point by argument. -- To go a-begging, a figurative phrase to express the absence of demand for something which elsewhere brings a price; as, grapes are so plentiful there that they go a-begging.

To ask alms or charity, especially to ask habitually by the wayside or from house to house; to live by asking alms. I can not dig; to beg I am ashamed. Luke xvi. 3.