beggars can't be choosers
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Someone in a desperate situation must accept what is available
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Người tuyệt vọng phải chấp nhận những gì có sẵn
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: people asking for charity cannot select
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
' Beggars can't be choosers, ' Zvi said with a snort, but there was no silencing Katz.
Beggars can't be choosers: better to depend even on dubious private money than a criminal state
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “beggars can't be choosers” mean?
Someone in a desperate situation must accept what is available Literally: people asking for charity cannot select
Is “beggars can't be choosers” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.