Mendicant

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Mendicant \Men"di*cant\, a. [L. mendicans, -antis, p. pr. of
     mendicare to beg, fr. mendicus beggar, indigent.]
     Practicing beggary; begging; living on alms; as, mendicant
     friars.
     [1913 Webster]
  


     {Mendicant orders} (R. C. Ch.), certain monastic orders which
        are forbidden to acquire landed property and are required
        to be supported by alms, esp. the Franciscans, the
        Dominicans, the Carmelites, and the Augustinians.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Mendicant \Men"di*cant\, n.
     A beggar; esp., one who makes a business of begging;
     specifically, a begging friar.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  mendicant
       adj : practicing beggary; "mendicant friars"
       n 1: a male member of a religious order that originally relied
            soley on alms [syn: {friar}]
       2: a pauper who lives by begging [syn: {beggar}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  110 Moby Thesaurus words for "mendicant":
     Albigensian, Catharist, Franciscan, Sabbatarian, Trappist,
     Waldensian, abbacomes, abbot, abstainer, abstinent, anchorite,
     anchoritic, ascetic, austere, beadsman, beggar, beggared, beggarly,
     begging, bereaved, bereft, bhikshu, brother, bum, bummer, cadger,
     cadging, caloyer, celibate, cenobite, conventual, conventual prior,
     coupon clippers, deprived, dervish, disadvantaged, drone, eremitic,
     fakir, flagellant, fleeced, freeloader, friar, ghettoized,
     grand prior, hermit, hieromonach, hobo, idle rich, impoverished,
     in need, in rags, in want, indigent, lay abbot, lay brother,
     leisure class, loafer, lounge lizard, lumpen proletariat,
     mendicant friar, mendicant order, monastic, monk, moocher,
     mooching, necessitous, needy, nonworker, on relief, out at elbows,
     palmer, panhandler, parasite, pauperized, petitionary, pilgrim,
     pillar saint, pillarist, poverty-stricken, prayerful, precative,
     prior, puritan, puritanical, religieux, religious, rentiers,
     rigoristic, sannyasi, schnorrer, scrounger, scrounging,
     self-denying, spiv, sponger, starveling, stripped, stylite,
     suppliant, supplicant, supplicating, supplicatory,
     the unemployable, the unemployed, tramp, underprivileged,
     wedded to poverty, yogi, yogin