Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To beg or get by begging.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To bind; tie.
- To bind the edge of.
- To stuff or fill: as, to cadge the belly.
- To stuff one's self at another's expense; sponge or live upon another.
- To carry, especially to carry for sale; hawk.
- To obtain by begging.
- To hawk goods, as in a cart or otherwise.
- To go about begging.
- n. A round piece of wood on which hawks were carried when exposed for sale.
Wiktionary
- n. A circular frame on which cadgers carry hawks for sale.
- v. To beg.
- v. To obtain something by wit or guile; to convince someone to do something they might not normally do.
- v. To carry hawks and other birds of prey.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To carry, as a burden.
- v. To hawk or peddle, as fish, poultry, etc.
- v. To intrude or live on another meanly; to beg.
- n. A circular frame on which cadgers carry hawks for sale.
WordNet 3.0
- v. obtain or seek to obtain by cadging or wheedling
- v. ask for and get free; be a parasite
Etymologies
- Perhaps back-formation from obsolete cadger, peddler, from Middle English cadgear.
Examples
“Billi walked sedately and by themselves; grooms of the kennels led greyhounds on the leash; behind them, almost bursting with importance, came a Persian deftly carrying the cadge, which is a kind of padded stand upon which, hooded and fastened by leashes, the favourite birds are carried to and fro.”
“From not being supplied with these necessaries, I was constantly having to "cadge”
“Coals he could get from Hall, also occasional half-crowns; these sufficed to pay for his breakfast; a dinner he could generally "cadge," and if he failed to do so, he had long ago learnt to go without.”
“They preferred to go out generally without the falconer, a Dutchman, who had been taken into the service of Sir Nicholas thirty years before when things had been more prosperous; it was less embarrassing so; but they would have a lad to carry the "cadge," and a pony following them to carry the game.”
“He asked Gordon Brown for a rock solid assurance that whatever he did to clear the nations debts he would never ever meet a Russian millionaire to to "cadge" the money.”
“The first act has some plot -- Margaret gets fired and then bullies Mike into inviting her to his birthday party so she can try and cadge a job from one of his friends.”
“This mammoth, multiyear project involved reinstalling its enormous collection across 26 galleries in an institution that, because it is barred by law from building out, had to cadge what extra space it could from within the existing envelope.”
“To cadge an opening from NPR's 'This American Life,' the theme of this morning's top stories is bipartisanship -- whether the two parties like it or not.”
The Washington Post: Wonkbook: Bipartisanship -- whether the two parties like it or not
“Who knows why these differences turn up in the data, but no law of nature says every cultural subgroup must be equal in its determination to cadge every nickel of advantage in every transaction.”
The Wall Street Journal: Racism Is Everywhere . . . Statistically
“I remember him as part of a group on semi-permanent watch for opportunities to cadge cigarettes, asking for a pull of yours, or a drag, or the butt.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cadge’.
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Noteworthy Words
Here I have in mind a list of words that could be spelled with only the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G--and thus could also be played as a tune on the piano.
face, ace, bag, cage, bad, fad, fade, fee, gee, beg, fed, deaf and 98 more...
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Any words List Its open!!
Im savin it for later
awesepoto
cooliest
sup
a-w-e-s-o-m-e
cool beans dude
hit me man
Rock on
Get a life dude
book timeweird, mongolian, 7457, saitin, toejam, aver, misanthrope, blandishment, cadge, fuschia, fuchsia, discotheque and 367 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Wall Street Journal wordsmiths
Unique and interesting words used by Wall Street Journal writers.
reesetee I hate when badgers do that. Feb 2, 2010
sionnach From Christopher Isherwood:
The only fault I find with badgers
Is that they’re such appalling cadgers.
If you ask one out to dine
He'll want a dozen of your wine
To take home. If he likes your prints
He'll bother you with clumsy hints:
"I say, who's that picture by?...
It's my birthday next July..."
Once, one asked me for my car -
This was going rather far -
So I said, "Wouldn't you rather
Take this ring? It belonged to my father;
It's set with diamonds." Calm and bland,
He thanked me and held out his hand.
I had an apoplectic fit:
The Badger walked away with it. Jan 31, 2010
renumeratedfrog I guess mooch would be the closest synonym, because it also means "beg" and "get by begging". Aug 21, 2008
mrming Attempting to obtain something without paying for it. Feb 7, 2007