beggarliness en · NOUN
Etymology
Etymology tree English beggarly Proto-Germanic *-inōną Proto-Indo-European *-dyé- Proto-Germanic *-atjaną Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Germanic *-þuz Proto-Germanic *-assuz Proto-Germanic *-inassuz Proto-West Germanic *-nassī Old English -nes Middle English -nesse English -ness English beggarliness From beggarly + -ness.
Meanings
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(rare, uncountable) The state or characteristic of being or resembling a beggar; destitution.
While the ant had enough in store to last him the famine, the grasshopper was reduced to beggarliness!
2008 January 16, “Nigeria: Wealth is Not a Measure of Achievement”, in AllAfrica.com:Angry duns, beggarliness of income, scarcity of the necessaries and luxuries which dignity of rank demanded, the indifference and slights of one's equals, and the ignoring of one's existence by exalted persons, were all hideous enough to Lord Mount Dunstan.
1906, Frances Hodgson Burnett, chapter 18, in The Shuttle:And suddenly the fifty-cent tip previously bestowed upon the servitor seemed, to one unexpectedly fallen heir to the princely fortune then in P. Sybarite's pockets, the very nadir of beggarliness.
1913, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter 8, in The Day of Days: