charity

proverb One should help family and close friends before helping others. When are you going to get your dear sister a job at your company? Remember, charity begins at home! She seems to have forgotten that charity begins at home—she has no problem volunteering at the church but rarely visits her own mother.

Someone who approaches people to collect donations or set up standing orders for a charity. The charity muggers in this town are so tenacious, and they make you feel like a horrible person if you don't contribute something!

An expression of sympathy, especially when more tangible assistance is needed. A: "I'm so sorry that you still have so much work left to do." B: "Don't give me Vermont charity—grab a paint brush, and help me out here!"

Prov. You should take care of family and people close to you before you worry about helping others. I don't think our church should worry so much about a foreign relief fund when there are people in need right here in our city. Charity begins at home. If you really want to make the world a better place, start by being polite to your sister. Charity begins at home.

Be generous to your family before helping others. For example, She spends hours and hours on volunteer work and neglects the children, forgetting that charity begins at home . This proverb was first recorded in English, in slightly different form, in John Wycliffe's Of Prelates (c. 1380); "Charity should begin at himself."

If you say charity begins at home or charity starts at home, you mean that you should deal with the needs of people close to you before you start to help others who are far away. Charity begins at home. There are many tasks right on campus that need volunteers as well. There are other cases in other countries but I think that charity should start at home.

One should take care of oneself and one’s family before worrying about others. This proverb is a version of Paul’s advice to Timothy in the New Testament (Timothy 5:4), which in the King James version was translated as “But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents.” The fourteenth-century English churchman John Wycliffe wrote, ca. 1380, “Charity schuld bigyne at hem-self,” which soon became “at home,” not just in English but in numerous other languages. Later theologians suggested that charity should begin but not end at home, yet even in the twentieth century it continued to be pointed out that it often does (“Charity begins at home and usually stays there,” H. B. Thompson, Body, Boots and Britches, 1940).