ask alms

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

A bat-eared young man with the mournful features of a card player who has aces wired, Murray could not ask alms as a disabled vet, since he had not been in service.

From Time Magazine Archive

We were six months in the Black Forest and only met one beggar the whole time, and he was a decent-looking old man who seemed to ask alms unwillingly.

From Home Life in Germany by Sidgwick, Alfred, Mrs.

Meanwhile he and the other refugees had to ask alms or starve.

From Historic Boyhoods by Holland, Rupert Sargent

There are few public charities; and it is not a common custom to ask alms.

From Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey through the Country from Pekin to Canton by Barrow, John, Sir

They would neither own property nor ask alms, but worked at various trades and were thus maintained, with voluntary offerings from the faithful.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 02 of 55 1521-1569 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century by Blair, Emma Helen