| 释义 |
mendicity|mɛnˈdɪsɪtɪ|
[a. F. mendicité (from 13th c.), ad. L. mendīcitās, f. mendīcus: see mendicant and -ity. Cf. Sp. mendicidad, Pg. mendicidade, It. mendicità.]
1. The state or condition of a mendicant or beggar, beggary. Also, now usually, the existence or numbers of the mendicant class.
c1400Rom. Rose 6525 For richesse and mendicitees Ben clepid. II. extremytees. Ibid. 6534 God thou me kepe for thi pouste Fro Richesse and mendicite. 1490Caxton Eneydos xviii. 68 Pigmalion, my cruelle brother,..shalle comme take my cyte, and put alle to destructyon, and brynge me to mendycyte. 1611Cotgr., Mendicité, mendicitie, beggarie, beggarlinesse. 1812G. Chalmers Dom. Econ. Gt. Brit. 401 He [Arthur Dobbs] complained, that there were 34,425 strolling beggars, in that kingdom. He explained this striking instance of mendicity [etc.]. 1815(title) Report from Committee on the State of Mendicity in the Metropolis. [Parl. Paper.] 1864H. Ainsworth John Law vi. i. (1881) 293 During the reign of Louis XIV, mendicity had existed to a frightful extent.
2. The practice or habit of begging.
180113th Rep. Soc. for Poor 22 note, Some workhouses are rather seminaries of mendicity, than preservatives against it. 1884American VIII. 105 With a view to the regular exercise of mendicity, pillage and murder.
3. attrib.
18191st Rep. Soc. Suppress. Mendicity 27 The Mendicity Societies at Bath, Edinburgh, Oxford, and Dublin. 1824T. Hook Say. & Do. Ser. i. III. 329 Mr. Harding was a subscriber to the Mendicity Society, an institution which proposes to check beggary by the novel method of giving nothing to the poor. 1884Century Mag. XXIX. 163 To set up a library, a ‘mendicity institution’, or a bank. |