badger

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of several carnivorous burrowing mammals of the family Mustelidae, such as Meles meles of Eurasia or Taxidea taxus of North America, having short legs, long claws on the front feet, and a heavy grizzled coat.
2. n. The fur or hair of this mammal.
3. n. Any of several similar mammals, such as the ratel.
4. v. To harass or pester persistently. See Synonyms at harass.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A badgeman; one entitled or required by law to wear a badge, as the police, licensed porters, and others.
2. n. A fossorial plantigrade carnivorous mammal, of the family Mustelidæ and subfamily Melinæ. (For its technical characters, see Melinæ.) The common European species, to which the name was first applied, is Meles vulgaris or Meles taxus; it is about 2 feet long, of heavy and clumsy shape, low on the legs, with a short thick tail, a long snout, and long claws fitted for digging. The general color is grizzled gray, with dark limbs, and black and white stripes on the head. This animal inhabits temperate and northerly portions of Europe and Asia. Its flesh is used as food, its pelt in furriery, and its hair for making shaving-brushes and the kind of artists' brushes called badgers. In a state of nature the animal is less fetid than some of the other species. The American badger, Taxidea americana, resembles the foregoing, but differs in the dental formula and some other technical characters; it is a common animal in the western States and Territories, and in some regions, as the Missouri watershed, it is very abundant. The Indian badger is Arctonyx collaris; it is also called sand-bear and bear-pig. The Javanese skunk (so called from its extreme fetidness), the teledu or telego, Mydaus meliceps, is a true badger. See cut under teledu. The ratel, honey-badger, or Cape badger, Mellivora capensis, is nearly related, though belonging to a different subfamily, the Mellivorinæ. The wombat is often called badger in Australia. It is a widespread vulgar error that the legs of the badger are shorter on one side than on the other; hence, “the uneven-legg'd badger,” Drayton.
3. n. An artists' brush made of badgers' hair, used for blending or causing the pigments to melt or shade into one another and for imparting smoothness. A flat brush used for removing dust from a polished surface in some photographic and other chemical operations, etc.
4. n. The Lutraria vulgaris, a common conchiferous or bivalve mollusk of northern Europe. It is especially used as bait for the cod.
5. n. A sobriquet of a resident of Wisconsin, called the Badger State, in allusion to the abundance of badgers in it.
6. To attack, as the badger is attacked when being drawn or baited; bait; worry; pester.
7. To beat down in a bargain.
8. Synonyms Pester, Worry, etc. See tease.
9. n. One who buys corn and other provisions to sell them elsewhere; a hawker; a huckster; a cadger. Badgers were required to take out a license, and were under certain legal restrictions as to regrating or forestalling the market. [Now only prov. Eng.]
10. n. An erroneous translation, in the English version of the Bible, of the Hebrew tahash, an animal whose skins are mentioned 13 times in the Old Testament as coverings for the ark of the covenant, the table of showbread, and the tabernacle itself, and once (in Ezek. xvi. 10) as a material for the shoes or sandals worn by women. Badgers are not known to occur in Asia as far south as Palestine and Arabia. The particular animal which furnished these skins has not yet been identified.
11. n. In Australia, the bandicoot, Perameles, and, rarely, the rock-kangaroo, Petrogale.
12. n. A soldier who wears short whiskers.
13. n. In angling, an artificial fly having a hackle of badger cock with a dark-brown, nearly black center and cream-colored points.

Wiktionary

1. n. A common name for any mammal of three subfamilies, which belong to the family Mustelidae: Melinae (Eurasian badgers), Mellivorinae (ratel or honey badger), and Taxideinae (American badger).
2. n. A native or resident of the American State of Wisconsin.
3. n. obsolete A brush made of badger hair.
4. n. plural A crew of desperate villains who robbed near rivers, into which they threw the bodies of those they murdered.
5. v. To pester, to annoy persistently.
6. v. UK, informal To pass gas; to fart.
7. n. obsolete An itinerant licensed dealer in commodities used for food; a hawker; a huckster; -- formerly applied especially to one who bought grain in one place and sold it in another.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Now dialectic, Eng. An itinerant licensed dealer in commodities used for food; a hawker; a huckster; -- formerly applied especially to one who bought grain in one place and sold it in another.
2. n. A carnivorous quadruped of the genus Meles or of an allied genus. It is a burrowing animal, with short, thick legs, and long claws on the fore feet. One species (Meles meles or Meles vulgaris), called also brock, inhabits the north of Europe and Asia; another species (Taxidea taxus or Taxidea Americana or Taxidea Labradorica) inhabits the northern parts of North America. See teledu.
3. n. A brush made of badgers' hair, used by artists.
4. v. To tease or annoy, as a badger when baited; to worry or irritate persistently.
5. v. To beat down; to cheapen; to barter; to bargain.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. persuade through constant efforts
2. n. a native or resident of Wisconsin
3. v. annoy persistently
4. n. sturdy carnivorous burrowing mammal with strong claws; widely distributed in the northern hemisphere