Definition
Begging is the act of soliciting money, food, or other goods from strangers or the public, typically without offering anything in exchange. In legal contexts, begging has historically been regulated as a form of vagrancy — conduct that localities and legislatures criminalized or penalized not primarily because of the act of asking, but because of its association with idleness, public disorder, and poverty. The term encompasses both active solicitation and passive conduct, such as standing silently in a public place with an outstretched hand.
Modern legal treatment has substantially complicated earlier approaches. Courts in the United States, applying First Amendment analysis, have increasingly held that begging — particularly passive or peaceful solicitation — constitutes protected expressive conduct or speech. Anti-begging ordinances have faced constitutional challenges with mixed results, and the legal landscape now depends heavily on how the ordinance is drafted, what conduct it targets, and where that conduct occurs.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The act of one who begs; money or goods acquired by begging.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To ask for as a charity, especially to ask for habitually or from house to house; to solicit alms; more broadly, to entreat or supplicate.
The gap between common and legal meaning here is one of consequence rather than definition. In ordinary language, begging is a description of conduct without inherent moral or legal charge. In law, begging has historically carried a stigmatizing legal classification — closely tied to vagrancy doctrine — that triggered criminal liability, civil commitment, or removal from public spaces. Today, the legal question is often constitutional: whether and how government may restrict what common language treats as simply asking.
Common Confusion
Begging is closely associated with vagrancy in historical legal sources, and many older dictionaries treat the terms interchangeably or cross-reference one to the other. They are not identical. Vagrancy is a broader status offense encompassing homelessness, idleness, and rootlessness — begging is one of many acts that vagrancy statutes historically punished. A person may beg without satisfying the full definition of a vagrant, and historical vagrancy laws swept in conduct far beyond solicitation. Researchers should not assume that case law or statutes governing vagrants directly maps onto modern anti-begging ordinances, which are typically drafted as conduct regulations rather than status offenses.
Why It Matters in Research
The historical treatment of begging as a species of vagrancy is the central trap for corpus researchers. Sources from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries rarely address begging as a standalone legal category — you will find it folded into vagrancy statutes, poor laws, and public order ordinances. Anderson's Dictionary of Law, for example, offers no independent definition and simply directs the reader to VAGRANT. Researchers working in historical materials must follow that cross-reference and understand the full vagrancy framework to interpret any specific begging-related provision.
The constitutional transformation of this area is equally important to track. Anti-vagrancy statutes were broadly invalidated after Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville (1972) on vagueness grounds. Anti-begging ordinances proliferated in the 1980s and 1990s as municipalities sought narrower substitutes. First Amendment challenges to those ordinances produced divergent results across federal circuits, making jurisdictional sensitivity essential. A researcher finding a case upholding an anti-begging ordinance in one circuit may find a directly contrary result in another.
The passive/active distinction flagged in Anderson — a cripple standing silently with an outstretched hand — retains legal significance. Courts and ordinances have drawn different lines between passive begging (protected or more protected) and aggressive solicitation (more regulable). That distinction is worth tracking across both statutory text and case law.
Researchers should also note the connection to broader solicitation law. Charitable solicitation, street fundraising, and canvassing occupy adjacent legal space and are sometimes regulated by the same ordinances that target begging. Cases construing one often inform the other.
Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson's Dictionary of Law (1889) provides the only historical dictionary entry and it is notably thin: a cross-reference to VAGRANT plus a brief illustrative statement that silent, passive conduct — a person standing on a sidewalk with an outstretched hand — qualifies as begging for alms. The footnote reference (10) suggests Anderson was drawing on judicial authority rather than offering an independent definition, though the underlying case is not identified in the entry.
The entry reflects the dominant nineteenth-century legal posture: begging was not a subject requiring elaborate definition because it was subsumed within vagrancy doctrine, which was itself well-developed. The legal interest was in punishing the condition and conduct associated with poverty and idleness, not in precisely defining the speech act of asking. This framing diverges sharply from modern doctrine, which treats the act of asking as presumptively expressive and requires the government to justify restrictions on it.
No other historical dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus carry a standalone entry for begging. The absence is itself informative: as a legal concept, begging was historically derivative, not primary.
Jurisdictional Note
Anti-begging law varies substantially by jurisdiction. Some states have preempted local ordinances; others leave regulation entirely to municipalities. Federal circuit courts are divided on the First Amendment status of various solicitation restrictions, meaning that the constitutionality of a given ordinance may turn on geography. Researchers should treat no general statement about the legality of anti-begging laws as jurisdiction-free.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Vagrancy; First Amendment and Public Forum Doctrine; Solicitation.