beggar belief

English

Verb

beggar belief (third-person singular simple present beggars belief, present participle beggaring belief, simple past and past participle beggared belief)

1. (intransitive, chiefly UK) To appear implausible or unbelievable.

   Synonym: beggar description

   It beggars belief to suppose that corporate policies can always pursue the best interests of a company.

   • 1907, Sidney Lee, Shakespeare and the Modern Stage‎^[1]:

     In Shakespeare's day boys or men took the part of women, and how characters like Lady Macbeth and Desdemona were adequately rendered by youths beggars belief.

   • 2021 November 17, “Network News: Anger at delegates' preferential treatment for Glasgow smartcards”, in RAIL, number 944, page 13:

     "It beggars belief that delegates are given smartcards for free travel around the city, yet ordinary Glaswegians will still be forced to use a disjointed ticketing system."

   • 2022 September 23, 0:07 from the start, in As Putin goes for broke: What next after Ukraine annexation referendums? • FRANCE 24 English‎^[2], spoken by François Picard, France 24, archived from the original on 27 September 2022:

     […] We'll ask about turnout numbers that already beggar belief and what happens after Vladimir Putin's Friday address scheduled before a joint session of the Russian parliament.

Translations

Translations

• Finnish: olla vaikea uskoa, olla mahdotonta uskoa
• French: dépasser l’entendement (fr), défier l’imagination
• Polish: nie mieścić się w głowie (pl) impf
• Spanish: sobrepasar el entendimiento, sobrepasar creencia, sobreponerse a la credibilidad

Further reading

• “beggar belief”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “beggar belief”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “beggar belief description”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “beggar belief description” (US) / “beggar belief description” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
• “beggar description belief” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
• “beggar belief beggar description”, in Collins English Dictionary.