ask alms

A bat-eared young man with the mournful features of a card player who has aces wired, Murray could not ask alms as a disabled vet, since he had not been in service.

From Time Magazine Archive

A mendicant, but not in rags like others of his kind, and with a dark and sinister countenance, narrowly observing every object around him, entered to ask alms.

From The Betrothed From the Italian of Alessandro Manzoni by Alessandro Manzoni

Beggars often ask alms in the interest of particular saints, and this one had attached himself to Elias.

From Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar Life by Thomas Wallace Knox

He does not dare to ask alms for a fugitive.

From Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 3 (of 3) by Theodore Parker

They would neither own property nor ask alms, but worked at various trades and were thus maintained, with voluntary offerings from the faithful.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 02 of 55 1521-1569 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century by Emma Helen Blair