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ALMS
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ALMS, the giving of relief, and the relief given, whether in goods or money, to the poor, particularly applied to the' charity bestowed under a sense of religious obligation (see CHARITY AND CHARITIES). The word in O. Eng. was aelmysse, and is derived through the Teutonic adaptation (cf. the modern Ger. almosen ) of the Latinized form of the Gr. EXei ovuvi7, compassion or mercy, from EXsos, pity. The English word " eleemosynary," that which is given in the way of alms, charitable, gratuitous, derives direct from the Greek. " Alms " is often, like " riches," wrongly taken as a plural word.