7 February 2017
mendicant
[men-di-kuh nt]
adjective
1. begging; practicing begging; living on alms.
2. pertaining to or characteristic of a beggar.
noun
3. a person who lives by begging; beggar.
4. a member of any of several orders of friars that originally forbade ownership of property, subsisting mostly on alms.
Origin of mendicant
late Middle English Latin
1425-1475; late Middle English < Latin mendīcant- (stem of mendīcāns), present participle of mendīcāre to beg, equivalent to mendīc (us) beggarly, needy + -ant- -ant
Related forms
nonmendicant, adjective
Dictionary.com
Examples from the Web for mendicant
Historical Examples
Or else, we have representations of those interested visits that mendicant friars paid to the dying.
A Literary History of the English People
Jean Jules Jusserand
The strength of the mendicant orders was in their popularity.
Folkways
William Graham Sumner
“Well-disposed” persons, with a good word from the priests, can obtain food at the convents of the mendicant friars.
Rome in 1860
Edward Dicey
The mendicant orders furnished the 218army of papal absolutism.
Folkways
William Graham Sumner
As in the case of Cybele, mendicant priests were attached to her service.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 6
Various
Other mendicant orders prove the dominant ideas of the time.
Folkways
William Graham Sumner
The mendicant monks stirred up the populace to acts of fanatical 35 enmity.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 1
Various
You may be certain there was a mendicant priest in attendance on his godship.
In Eastern Seas
J. J. Smith
The mendicant orders were subject only to their own general or superior, not to the bishops.
Chaucer’s Works, Volume 5 (of 7) — Notes to the Canterbury Tales
Geoffrey Chaucer
As she came closer to him, the mendicant acted very strangely.
Monte-Cristo’s Daughter
Edmund Flagg
Anagram
caned mint
mind enact
Today’s quote
You are the slave of what you say and the master of what you do not.
– Francisco Franco
On this day
7 February 1812 – birth of Charles Dickens, English writer and social critic. Author of numerous works, including The Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist. Died 9 June 1870.
7 February 1967 – Black Tuesday bushfires in Tasmania, which kill 62 and injure 900.
7 February 1967 – Death of David Uniapon, indigenous preacher, author and inventor. He is on the Australian $50 note. David influenced government decision making regarding aboriginal issues and invented a hand-piece for shearing sheep. Born 28 September 1872.
7 February 1971 – Switzerland gives women the right to vote.
7 February 1984 – Bruce McAndless becomes the first man to fly freely in space when he unclips his harness and uses a jet-pack to fly 300 feet away from the space shuttle, Challenger, before flying safely back to it.
7 February 1992 – Twelve members of the European Union ratify the Maastricht Treaty for greater economic integration, security and policing. The Treaty is implemented in November 1993. The nations were Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Denmark, Greece, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Irish Republic.