The phrase “beggars can’t choose” means that when someone is desperate for help, they cannot be selective about what they receive. It originated in the 16th century when there was no welfare system, and beggars had to accept whatever assistance was offered to them. It can also be used as a cautionary tale not to question a gift or assistance when needed.
The phrase “beggars can’t choose” is used most often when someone asks for assistance. It means that when he asks for help, the requester cannot be picky about what he gets. “Beggars cannot choose” can also mean that when someone is desperate for services, goods or financial support, he cannot be selective about what to accept or what not to accept. It can also be used as a cautionary tale to someone getting help if they question what is being given and it means not to question a gift or assistance when needed.
Dating back to at least the 16th century, the phrase came into use and is first recorded in writing at about the same time as an idiom with a similar meaning. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” is the English proverb that mirrors “beggars can’t choose”, but it doesn’t have exactly the same meaning. The first sentence means not examining something freely given. It comes from the practice of looking into a horse’s mouth to determine its health and age.
“Beggars can’t choose” certainly carried the caveat that a person shouldn’t be critical of a gift being given, but speaks more of being in a desperate situation and asking for assistance, whereas the phrase “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth could be used to describe a gift that hasn’t been asked for or even needed. At the time when “beggars can’t choose” came into common usage, there was no welfare system for those who fell into hardship, couldn’t find work, or were unable to work due to a physical disability. Beggars were common in villages, cities and even rural areas.
These beggars were desperate and had to accept whatever assistance, food or shelter was offered to them. They couldn’t be picky about turning down an offer in the hope that a better one would come along or turning down an offer because the gift didn’t meet their expectations. People of the time would have been familiar with beggars and their desperate situation and might even have uttered the phrase with literal meaning when offering a slightly spoiled beggar’s food or a night’s rest in the barn among the animals. Since the meaning of the phrase would have been familiar to almost anyone, it came into figurative usage to describe other situations in which help was offered, even if it wasn’t quite the kind of quality the applicant had hoped for when seeking assistance.
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