different between mendicant vs vagary

English

Etymology

From Latin mend?c?ns, present participle of mend?c? (“beg”). Compare French mendiant.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /?m?n.d?.k?nt/

Adjective

mendicant (not comparable)

1. Depending on alms for a living.
2. Of or pertaining to a beggar.
3. Of or pertaining to a member of a religious order forbidden to own property, and who must beg for a living.

Related terms

Translations

Noun

mendicant (plural mendicants)

1. A pauper who lives by begging.
2. A religious friar, forbidden to own personal property, who begs for a living.

Translations

Related terms

• mendicant order

Latin

Verb

mend?cant

1. third-person plural present active indicative of mend?c?

English

Etymology

From Latin vagus (“wandering”).

Pronunciation

• (General American, formerly) IPA^(key): /v?????i/
• (General American, now commonly) IPA^(key): /?ve????i/

Noun

vagary (plural vagaries)

1. An erratic, unpredictable occurrence or action.
   • 1871, Charles Kingsley, At Last: A Christmas In The West Indies, ch. 8:

     It now turns out that the Pitch Lake, like most other things, owes its appearance on the surface to no convulsion or vagary at all, but to a most slow, orderly, and respectable process of nature, by which buried vegetable matter, which would have become peat, and finally brown coal, in a temperate climate, becomes, under the hot tropic soil, asphalt and oil.
2. An impulsive or illogical desire; a caprice or whim.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:whim

   • 1905, Jack London, War of the Classes, Preface:

     And then came the day when my socialism grew respectable,—still a vagary of youth, it was held, but romantically respectable.

Derived terms

• vagarity
• vagarious

Related terms

• vague
• vagrant
• vagabond

Translations

See also

• vaguery

Anagrams

• Varyag