The state of being a beggar or mendicant:
— They were reduced to mendicancy.

synonyms: beggary, mendicity.

Roget 804: poverty, indigence, penury, pauperism, destitution, want; need, neediness; lack, necessity, privation, distress, difficulties, wolf at the door.    bad circumstances, poor circumstances, need circumstances, embarrassed circumstances, reduced circumstances, straightened circumstances; slender means, narrow means; straits; hand to mouth existence, res angusta domi [Lat.], low water, impecuniosity.    beggary; mendicancy, mendicity^†; broken fortune, loss of fortune; insolvency etc. (nonpayment) 808.    empty pocket, empty purse; light purse; beggarly account of empty boxes.    [poor people] poor man, pauper, mendicant, mumper^†, beggar, starveling; pauvre diable [Fr.]; fakir^†, schnorrer^†; homeless person.    ... show more

Dutch: bedelarij

A solicitation for money or food (especially in the street by an apparently penniless person).

synonyms: beggary, begging.

Roget 765: request, requisition; claim etc. (demand) 741; petition, suit, prayer; begging letter, round robin.    motion, overture, application, canvass, address, appeal, apostrophe; imprecation; rogation; proposal, proposition.    orison etc. (worship) 990; incantation etc. (spell) 993.    mendicancy; asking, begging etc. v.; postulation, solicitation, invitation, entreaty, importunity, supplication, instance, impetration^†, imploration^†, obsecration^†, obtestation^†, invocation, interpellation.    ... show more

Dutch: bedelarij, gebedel
Polish: żebranina