Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Beg

Beg ({not transcribed}) , noun

[Turkish beg, pronounced bay. Compare Bey, Begum.]

A title of honor in Turkey and in some other parts of the East; a bey.

Beg ({not transcribed}) , transitive verb

[Old English beggen, perh. from Anglo-Saxon bedecian (akin to Gothic bedagwa beggar), biddan to ask. (Compare Bid, transitive verb); or compare beghard, beguin.]

1.
To ask earnestly for; to entreat or supplicate for; to beseech.
I do beg your good will in this case. — Shakespeare
[Joseph] begged the body of Jesus. — Matt. xxvii. 58

Sometimes implying deferential and respectful, rather than earnest, asking; as, I beg your pardon; I beg leave to disagree with you.

2.
To ask for as a charity, esp. to ask for habitually or from house to house.
Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. — Bible (KJV) - Psalm xxxvii. 25
3.
To make petition to; to entreat; as, to beg a person to grant a favor.
4.
To take for granted; to assume without proof.
5.
(Old Law) To ask to be appointed guardian for, or to also to have a guardian appointed for.
Else some will beg thee, in the court of wards. — Harrington
Collocations (4)
To beg (one) for a fool , to take him for a fool.
I beg to , is an elliptical expression for I beg leave to; as, I beg to inform you.
To beg the question , to assume that which was to be proved in a discussion, instead of adducing the proof or sustaining the point by argument.
To go a-begging , a figurative phrase to express the absence of demand for something which elsewhere brings a price; as, grapes are so plentiful there that they go a-begging.

Beg , intransitive verb

To ask alms or charity, especially to ask habitually by the wayside or from house to house; to live by asking alms.
I can not dig; to beg I am ashamed. — Luke xvi. 3