Palliard

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who wanders from place to place begging for alms or sustenance
2. Someone who travels about as a pauper, surviving through soliciting charity from others
3. A vagabond or itinerant beggar who roams seeking food and shelter

Etymology: "Palliard" is a word for a shabby, ragged beggar or vagabond, and its story runs through straw. Its ancestor in French, "paillard," came from "paille," meaning straw, and the connection is literal: a person who lived on straw was someone with no bed, no home and no settled place to sleep. The word passed into Middle English as "payllart" in 1484, carrying that picture of a wretched figure bedded down in the fields or barns. The word's sense has been shaped by its origin in the way rough living was described. A straw bed was the bottom rung of poverty, so the name for someone who slept on it naturally became a name for a tramp. The image of straw has faded from everyday use, but it explains why the word sounds like a rough, unkempt figure rather than a formal social category.