What does beggaring mean?
Beggaring is the present participle of the verb 'beggar', meaning to reduce a person, household, or institution to poverty or financial ruin. It carries strong negative connotations and appears most often in elevated, literary, or journalistic prose rather than everyday speech. Writers use it when ordinary terms like 'draining' or 'costing' feel too mild: a war may be said to be beggaring a nation, or reckless spending to be beggaring future generations. Beyond the literal financial sense, the word survives in a famous figurative idiom — 'it beggars description' — meaning something so extraordinary that language itself cannot capture it, a phrase dating back centuries and still widely quoted. Because it evokes the plight of beggars, the word has an old-fashioned gravity; using it signals deliberate rhetorical emphasis. For learners, it is best understood as a vivid, formal intensifier of 'ruining financially', valuable chiefly for reading comprehension and for adding weight to formal writing about economics, politics, or extravagance.
Reducing someone or something to poverty; exhausting the financial resources of a person, institution, or nation.
"The king's endless wars were beggaring the crown and its subjects alike."
Used mainly in progressive tenses; rare in casual speech.
Exceeding the power of expression or imagination, as in the idiom 'to beggar description'.
"The devastation left by the storm was beggaring any attempt at description."
When something defies description, English says it is 'beggaring description' — so extreme it would bankrupt language itself.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of beggaring
Beggaring derives from 'beggar', which entered Middle English in the thirteenth century, probably from Old French 'begart' or Beghard, a name applied to lay members of certain religious orders who lived by alms. The verb form, meaning to reduce to poverty, developed from the noun by the late sixteenth century. Related forms include the adjective 'beggarly' (mean or paltry) and the phrase 'beggar description', attested since at least Shakespeare's era.
Related word forms
How beggaring is actually used
Almost always used in formal or literary contexts, typically in progressive constructions ('is beggaring', 'was beggaring'). The figurative use in phrases like 'beggars description' is far more common than literal use.
Easily confused with beggaring
'Begging' means asking for money or favors, while 'beggaring' means reducing something to poverty — one is asking for alms, the other causing destitution.