Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun 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.
  • noun The fur or hair of any of these mammals.
  • noun Any of several similar mammals, such as the ratel.
  • transitive verb To ask or nag (someone) about something in an annoying and persistent way; pester: synonym: harass.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who buys corn and other provisions to sell them elsewhere; a hawker; a huckster; a cadger.
  • noun A fossorial plantigrade carnivorous mammal, of the family Mustelidæ and subfamily Melinæ.
  • noun 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.
  • noun The Lutraria vulgaris, a common conchiferous or bivalve mollusk of northern Europe. It is especially used as bait for the cod.
  • noun A sobriquet of a resident of Wisconsin, called the Badger State, in allusion to the abundance of badgers in it.
  • noun A badgeman; one entitled or required by law to wear a badge, as the police, licensed porters, and others.
  • To attack, as the badger is attacked when being drawn or baited; bait; worry; pester.
  • To beat down in a bargain.
  • Synonyms Pester, Worry, etc. See tease.
  • noun 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.
  • noun In Australia, the bandicoot, Perameles, and, rarely, the rock-kangaroo, Petrogale.
  • noun A soldier who wears short whiskers.
  • noun In angling, an artificial fly having a hackle of badger cock with a dark-brown, nearly black center and cream-colored points.

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

  • noun 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.
  • noun A brush made of badgers' hair, used by artists.
  • noun (Zoöl.) See Dachshund.
  • noun 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.
  • transitive verb To tease or annoy, as a badger when baited; to worry or irritate persistently.
  • transitive verb To beat down; to cheapen; to barter; to bargain.

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

  • noun 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.
  • noun 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).
  • noun A native or resident of the American State of Wisconsin.
  • noun obsolete A brush made of badger hair.
  • noun plural A crew of desperate villains who robbed near rivers, into which they threw the bodies of those they murdered.
  • verb To pester, to annoy persistently.
  • verb UK, informal To pass gas; to fart.

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

  • verb persuade through constant efforts
  • noun a native or resident of Wisconsin
  • verb annoy persistently
  • noun sturdy carnivorous burrowing mammal with strong claws; widely distributed in the northern hemisphere

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Perhaps from badge.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Unknown

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English bageard ("marked by a badge"), from bage ("badge"), from Anglo-Norman bage ("emblem"), referring to the animal's badge-like white blaze.

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Examples

  • _European badger and Glutton_; and in the south, the _Indian badger_; while in the Himalaya chain dwells another animal, closely allied to the badgers, called the _Wha_ or _Panda_.

    Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found A Book of Zoology for Boys Mayne Reid 1850

  • He'll produce a badger from a sack, and he'll proceed to stuff the badger down his pants.

    Jennifer Lopez to Star in Overboard Remake | /Film 2010

  • I often come down this lane at night, slowly, in case a badger is scurrying into the bank or a hare making off for the open fields, and in the early autumn the steep perspective here gives the full moon the look of an enormous poacher's lantern hanging up in the trees.

    Coming Home Peter Ashley 2008

  • There's plenty to choose from with Vietnam being top of his list but he stops short of anything too radical and releases a badger from the local zoo instead.

    42 entries from July 2007 2007

  • There's plenty to choose from with Vietnam being top of his list but he stops short of anything too radical and releases a badger from the local zoo instead.

    Several Perceptions 2007

  • With the political integrity, which has become this governments ‘leit motif’, Darling responded belatedly to outrage of our brave lads and lasses were living in badger sets He promised of £80 million of brand new shiny unaccounted-for money.

    Archive 2007-10-07 Newmania 2007

  • There's plenty to choose from with Vietnam being top of his list but he stops short of anything too radical and releases a badger from the local zoo instead.

    Several Perceptions 2007

  • With the political integrity, which has become this governments ‘leit motif’, Darling responded belatedly to outrage of our brave lads and lasses were living in badger sets He promised of £80 million of brand new shiny unaccounted-for money.

    Drowning In Lies Newmania 2007

  • States, for the animal there sometimes called a badger is the ground-hog, or Maryland marmot (_Arctomys monax_).

    The Young Voyageurs Boy Hunters in the North Mayne Reid 1850

  • (among the Indians a coward is often called a badger) he hissed; and he struck the suppliant down before him.

    "The Fading of Shadow Flower" 1903

Comments

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  • mush mushroom!

    February 17, 2007

  • Snake, snake! Oh, it's a snake!

    February 17, 2007

  • I don't know what's worse: WeirdNet telling me (informatively, I admit) about Wisconsin, or http://www.badgers.org.uk/ telling me 'You're search is over'. Still, their toolbar does look hardcore...

    December 1, 2007

  • I search no more, no matter how much Google badgers me.

    December 1, 2007

  • Ha! Well said, bilby.

    December 2, 2007

  • See spoon

    May 12, 2018