different between beggar vs scrunt

English

Alternative forms

• begger (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English beggere, beggare, beggar (“beggar”), from Middle English beggen (“to beg”), equivalent to beg +? -ar.

Alternative etymology derives Middle English beggere, beggare, beggar from Old French begart, originally a member of the Beghards, a lay brotherhood of mendicants in the Low Countries, from Middle Dutch beggaert (“mendicant”), with pejorative suffix (see -ard); the order is said to be named after the priest Lambert le Bègue of Liège (French for “Lambert the Stammerer”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?b???/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?b???/
• Rhymes: -???(?)

Noun

beggar (plural beggars)

1. A person who begs.
   • 1983, Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Sophist: The Drama of Original & Image, St. Augustine’s Press, p. 62:

     Odysseus has returned to his home disguised as a beggar.

2. A person suffering from extreme poverty.
3. (colloquial, sometimes endearing) A mean or wretched person; a scoundrel.

   What does that silly beggar think he's doing?

4. (Britain) A minced oath for bugger.

Synonyms

• (who begs): mendicant, panhandler, schnorrer, spanger, truant, see also Thesaurus:beggar
• (extremely poor person): palliard, pauper, vagabond, see also Thesaurus:pauper

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

beggar (third-person singular simple present beggars, present participle beggaring, simple past and past participle beggared)

1. (transitive) To make a beggar of someone; impoverish.
2. (transitive) To exhaust the resources of; to outdo.

Synonyms

• ruin

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• bagger

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sk??nt/

Etymology 1

• Onomatopoetic

Noun

scrunt (plural scrunts)

1. An abrupt, high-pitched sound.
   • 1894, Robert Barr, "Held Up," McClure's Magazine, 1893-1894 Dec-May, p. 309:

     Just as they were in the roughest part of the mountains, there was a wild shriek of the whistle, a sudden scrunt of the air-brakes, and the train, with an abruptness that was just short of an accident, stopped.

   • 1901, David S. Meldrum, "The Conquest of Charlotte," Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, v.171, 1902 Jan-Jun, pg. 128:

     But Jess would not budge, and all of a sudden I sees a white flash in the dark, and hears a rattle of harness, and a scrunt in the shafts as Jess shook her head clear of the blow.

   • 2004, George Douglas Brown, The House with the Green Shutters, Kessinger Publishing, ?ISBN, pg. 243:

     They rose, and the scrunt of Janet's chair on the floor, when she pushed it behind her, sent a thrilling shiver through her body, so tense was her mood.

Etymology 2

Noun

scrunt (plural scrunts)

1. A beggar or destitute person.
   • 1938, James Bridie, The Last Trump, publ. Constable, pg. 29:

     It's a fine, ennobling thing, is poverty. It would make me a brutal scrunt, and you a whinging harridan in three years.

   • 1987, David Rabe, Hurlyburly: A Play, publ. Samuel French, Inc., ?ISBN, pg. 112:

     And without my work what am I but an unemployed scrunt on the meat market of the streets?

   • 2005, Ronan O'Donnell, The Doll Tower, ?ISBN, pg. 20:

     Not slum-dweller socialist but high-class fanny socialist. [...] Socialism that drinks wine - a single bottle costs a year's pay to a fuckin scrunt like Uxbridge.

Verb

scrunt (third-person singular simple present scrunts, present participle scrunting, simple past and past participle scrunted)

1. To beg or scrounge.
   • 1976, Alister Hughes, "Love Carefully," The Virgin Islands Daily News, Feb 2, 1976:

     On the other hand in countries where people scrunt to live, the birth rate is high.

   • 1979, Maurice Bishop, Selected Speeches, 1979-1981, Casa de las Américas, pg. 11:

     Four out of every five women are forced to stay at home or scrunt for a meagre existence.

   • 1996, Defining Ourselves: Black Writers in the 90s, publ. P. Lang, 1999, ?ISBN, pg. 69:

     As a woman of color living in the north of Metropole, anything that I did dig up I really had to scrunt for.