One who begs; an alternative or archaic spelling of 'beggar,' often referring to a person asking for charity or alms.
Variant spelling of 'beggar,' from Old French 'begard.' This spelling appears in earlier texts and represents a stage in the evolution of the word's spelling standardization.
Spelling wasn't fixed in Early Modern English—you'd see 'begger,' 'beggar,' and 'beghard' all meaning similar things. The extra 'g' eventually became standard, but 'begger' shows how fluid English spelling once was.
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