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beg

/ˈbɛɡ/verb, noun

beg is spelled B-E-G: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 11 times per million words in written English, the 6,565th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, beg means “To request the help of someone, often in the form of money” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in beg?

Letters3: B-E-G
Syllables1
In writing11 times per million words; the 6,565th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How common is beg?

Beg appears 11 times per million words in written English, the 6,565th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce beg?

  • /ˈbɛɡ/
  • [ˈbɛɡ]
  • Australia /ˈbeɡ/

Beg has one syllable.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-beg.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with beg

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

bag vs beg0 B

Also written: bey.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Forms of beg

  • begs present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • begging participle, present
  • begged participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does beg mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To request the help of someone, often in the form of money.

    He begged on the street corner from passers-by.

  2. 2

    To plead with someone for help, a favor, etc.; to entreat.

    I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean to cause offence.

  3. 3

    To unwillingly provoke a negative, often violent, reaction.

    The way you keep eating raw meat, you're just begging to get tapeworms.

  4. 4

    To obviously lack or be in need of something.

    A captivating novel that just begs for a movie adaptation

  5. 5

    In the phrase beg the question: to assume.

  6. 6

    proscribedIn the phrase beg the question: to raise (a question).

  7. 7

    obsoleteTo ask to be appointed guardian for, or to ask to have a guardian appointed for.

noun

  1. 1

    The act of begging; an imploring request.

  2. 2

    UKderogatoryslangA pretentious, attention-seeking, or eccentric person.

    Girls told me about not wanting to be seen by boys as "too much", "too loud", "weird", "annoying", a "pick me", or "a beg" (someone looking for attention). They told me how boys can be loud and funny, but that girls had better not.

  3. 3

    Alternative form of bey.

    Yaqub Beg (c. 1820 – 1877)

  4. 4

    Abbreviation of beginning.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Beg in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchmendier, quêter, quémander (to request the help of someone, often in the…), implorer, supplier (to plead with someone for help)
Germanbetteln (to request the help of someone, often in the…), anflehen, bitten (to plead with someone for help)
Portuguesemendigar (to request the help of someone, often in the…), suplicar, implorar (to plead with someone for help)
Spanishmendigar, pordiosear (to request the help of someone, often in the…), suplicar, rogar, deprecar (to plead with someone for help)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does beg come from?

Inherited from Middle English beggen, of uncertain origin. Possibly from Old English *becgian, *bedcian, syncopated forms of bedecian (“to beg”), itself of obscure origin. Possibly from Proto-West Germanic *bedukōn, a frequentative verb derived from Proto-West Germanic *bedu (“plea, petition, prayer”, whence English bead). Alternatively from Proto-West Germanic *bedagō (“petitioner, requester, beggar”), an agent noun from the same source. Compare North Frisian bēdagi (“to pray”), Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐌳𐌰𐌲𐍅𐌰 (bidagwa, “beggar”). All ultimately from the root of English bid, which see for more.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after beg