beggarly
/ˈbɛɡəli
/adjective
1Pitifully or deplorably meagre or bad: the stipend in 1522 was a beggarly 26 shillings...
- A beggarly tribute to all that is retrogressive, stupid, and mean.
- What man but a philosopher would not be ashamed to see his furniture packed in a cart and going up country exposed to the light of heaven and the eyes of men, a beggarly account of empty boxes?
- Or if anyone could contrive to return in beggarly disguise after ten years' maritime battering and see off all his swaggering rivals with a deliciously unexpected volte-face, Vick would be your man.
Synonyms
meagre, modest, slight, lean, scant, scanty, skimpy, puny, inadequate, insufficient, insubstantial, miserly, paltry, pitiful, derisory, niggardly, ungenerous, miserable, contemptible, despicable
informal measly, stingy, lousy, pathetic, piddling, piffling, mingy, poxy
rare exiguous
2Poverty-stricken; very poor: his circumstances were beggarly...
- Ay, but Sir John, I think they are exceedingly poor and bare, too beggarly.
- The passage cited above is full of nostalgia for the ‘heroic’ days of his beggarly existence in Paris.
- One of the beggarly, half-made societies of the world.
Synonyms
wretched, miserable, sordid, squalid, shabby, shoddy, mean, base, vile, foul, despicable, unpleasant;
poor, poverty-stricken, impoverished, distressed, beggared, needy, penniless, destitute, indigent, impecunious, penurious
informal hard up, on one's uppers
Derivatives
beggarliness
- It was the beggarliness of his companion that caused him the most pain.
- It is not a noisy and showy beggarliness, nor is it a mask for laziness and neglect.
- Why have we allowed this embarrassing beggarliness to become an annual ritual?