Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Originally, a carrier; a packman.
  • noun One who carries butter, eggs, poultry, etc., to market from the country; an itinerant huckster or hawker.
  • noun A person who gets a living by begging: as, “the gentleman cadger,”
  • noun The bearer or carrier of hawks.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A packman or itinerant huckster.
  • noun Prov. or Slang One who gets his living by trickery or begging.
  • noun (Hawking) One who carries hawks on a cadge.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic A hawker or peddler.
  • noun Geordie A beggar.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who mooches or cadges (tries to get something free)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the archaic verb to cadge to carry > derived from Old French.

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Examples

  • I do not know precisely what 'cadger' means, but I imagine it to be a character like me, liable to headache, to sea-sickness, to all the infirmities 'that flesh is heir to,' and a few others besides; the friends and relations of cadgers should therefore use all soft persuasions to induce them to remain at home.

    Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle 1883

  • So long as a cadger [from the Scandinavian word for "huckster"] is generous in turn (though not necessarily in kind), he ought not to be considered a deadbeat, freeloader, or sponger.

    Boing Boing 2008

  • He was a sharp dresser and smooth talker imbued with the mysterious charm of the confidence man, an expert cadger of handouts from relatives, friends, and total strangers.

    Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010

  • He was a sharp dresser and smooth talker imbued with the mysterious charm of the confidence man, an expert cadger of handouts from relatives, friends, and total strangers.

    Colossus Michael Hiltzik 2010

  • See: BEGGAR, LOAF, SAUNTER. cadger: Cadging, the ancient art of imposing upon the generosity of others, is an essential skill for the would-be idler, since poverty is the easiest way to obtain a great deal of free time.

    Boing Boing 2008

  • “O cadger, why not answer me when I first called to thee?”

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • The devious, dishonest, disreputable old cadger that he is.

    The Friday Cyril: Wednesday's Rochdale Obbie Postbag 2008

  • A want of application, a restlessness of purpose, a thirsting after porter, a love of all that is roving and cadger – like in nature, shared in common with many other great geniuses, appear to have been his leading characteristics.

    Sketches by Boz 2007

  • A car thief who hits his first wife so hard that he broke his thumb, Dean is a shiftless alcoholic cadger who dumps three wives over the three years in which the book takes place, leaving his children littered across the landscape.

    A Manual to Freedom 2007

  • SPONGE stresses the parasitic laziness, dependence, and opportunism of the cadger a shiftless sponge, always looking for a handout.

    Firedoglake » Bush’s Favorite Democrat Wows the Connecticut Press — Again 2006

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