Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive & transitive verb To beg or get by begging.
from The Century Dictionary.
- 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.
- 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.
- noun A round piece of wood on which hawks were carried when exposed for sale.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- verb Prov. Eng. & Scot. To carry, as a burden.
- verb Proverbs To hawk or peddle, as fish, poultry, etc.
- verb Prov. or Slang, Eng. To intrude or live on another meanly; to beg.
- noun (Hawking) A circular frame on which cadgers carry hawks for sale.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun falconry A circular
frame on whichcadgers carryhawks for sale. - verb Geordie To
beg . - verb US, UK, slang To
obtain something bywit orguile ; toconvince someone to do something they might not normally do. - verb To carry
hawks and otherbirds ofprey .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb obtain or seek to obtain by cadging or wheedling
- verb ask for and get free; be a parasite
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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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.
The Hawk of Egypt Joan Conquest
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From not being supplied with these necessaries, I was constantly having to "cadge"
Canada for Gentlemen James Seaton Cockburn
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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.
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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.
By What Authority? Robert Hugh Benson 1892
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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.
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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.
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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.
Michael Giltz: Theater: Not So "Good People," Fine "Timon," Lovely "Nightingale" and No KO for "Beautiful Burnout" Michael Giltz 2011
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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.
Opening the Book of American Art Eric Gibson 2012
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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.
Wonkbook: Bipartisanship -- whether the two parties like it or not Ezra Klein 2011
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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.
Michael Giltz: Theater: Not So "Good People," Fine "Timon," Lovely "Nightingale" and No KO for "Beautiful Burnout" Michael Giltz 2011
mrming commented on the word cadge
Attempting to obtain something without paying for it.
February 7, 2007
renumeratedfrog commented on the word cadge
I guess mooch would be the closest synonym, because it also means "beg" and "get by begging".
August 21, 2008
sionnach commented on the word cadge
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.
January 31, 2010
reesetee commented on the word cadge
I hate when badgers do that.
February 2, 2010
Gammerstang commented on the word cadge
(verb/noun) - A whining beggar is a cadger. "On the cadge" is applied to the regular "rounders" who wander from town to town telling in each place a pitiful story of distress. In Scotland a cadger is an itinerant peddler of fish.
--James Maitland's American Slang Dictionary, 1891
January 17, 2018