Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A feeling of offense; resentment; sullen anger; ill will; discord.
  • Rude; unpolished.
  • noun A stave of a barrel or cask.
  • noun Wood for staves: same as dudgeon-tree.
  • noun Some kind of wood having a mottled grain; or the wooden hilt of a dagger, ornamented with graven lines.
  • noun The hilt of a dagger. See dudgeon-haft.
  • noun A dagger. See dudgeon-dagger.
  • Ornamented with graven lines; full of wavy lines; curiously veined or mottled.

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

  • noun Resentment; ill will; anger; displeasure.
  • noun The root of the box tree, of which hafts for daggers were made.
  • noun The haft of a dagger.
  • noun A dudgeon-hafted dagger; a dagger.
  • adjective obsolete Homely; rude; coarse.

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

  • noun obsolete A kind of wood used especially in the handles of knives.
  • noun obsolete A hilt made of this wood.
  • noun archaic A dagger which has a dudgeon hilt.
  • noun A feeling of anger or resentment (usually only in set terms, below).

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

  • noun a feeling of intense indignation (now used only in the phrase `in high dudgeon')

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Apparently from Anglo-Norman or Middle French, but the ultimate origin is obscure.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin uncertain; perhaps the same as Etymology 1, above.

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Examples

  • More bloviation and high dudgeon from the White House on the reporting of the bank records data mining: Speaking at a fund-raising event in St. Louis for Senator Jim Talent, Mr. Bush made the news reports his central theme.

    June 2006 2006

  • The animal was restive, took the stone very much in dudgeon, ran, and carrying his rider under a tree, Mr. Randolph's forehead was struck by a low-lying limb, and he was thrown off.

    Melbourne House 1907

  • We waited by the hedge-side for several minutes – Mr. Charles ceased his urging, half in dudgeon, save that he was too pleasant a man really to take offence at anything.

    John Halifax, Gentleman 1897

  • So the carpet-woman went off in dudgeon, for she was sure there would not be time enough to do anything.

    The Peterkin Papers Lucretia Peabody 1886

  • The man walked off in dudgeon, and Mr. Westwyn, losing his anger in his astonishment at this effrontery, said, 'And pray, Mr. Lynmere, what do you pretend to know of Stilton cheese? do they make it at Leipsic? did you ever so much as taste it in your life?'

    Camilla: or, A Picture of Youth 1796

  • I take my leave in what you call the dudgeon - and word flies from mouth to mouth that Blowitz is beaten, that he sulks like a spoiled child, my rivals rejoice at my failure - and breathe sighs of relief ... and all the time the treaty is here - "he tapped his breast, chortling" - and tomorrow it will appear in The Times and in no other paper in the world! "

    Watershed 2010

  • I take my leave in what you call the dudgeon - and word flies from mouth to mouth that Blowitz is beaten, that he sulks like a spoiled child, my rivals rejoice at my failure - and breathe sighs of relief ... and all the time the treaty is here - "he tapped his breast, chortling" - and tomorrow it will appear in The Times and in no other paper in the world! "

    Flashman And The Tiger Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1999

  • But, finding himself passed over, when others were promoted, he had gone off homeward in dudgeon.

    This Country of Ours: The Story of the United States Henrietta Elizabeth 1917

  • Do you think I would be dressed like a boy? cried Nora, in dudgeon.

    Melbourne House 1907

  • But I took little heed of her, being in a kind of dudgeon, and oppressed with evil luck; believing too that all she wanted was to have some little grumble about some petty grievance.

    Lorna Doone Richard Doddridge 2004

Comments

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  • “I see thee still,

    And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,

    Which was not so before.�?

    (Macbeth)

    April 12, 2008

  • Yes, of course. And this is the other meaning of dudgeon - a wooden dagger handle.

    April 12, 2008

  • One morning early, I gave in my accounts with a very sulky air; she took them from me in moody silence, and we parted in a sort of well-bred dudgeon.

    - Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 4 ch. 7

    September 18, 2008

  • When I was a kid there was a very tough boy in the neighborhood with the last name Dudgeon. Adds credence to the idea that once's name can influence one's behavior.

    May 25, 2010

  • ...or that one's name can reflect the disposition of one's ancestors.

    May 26, 2010

  • "Musty shied back, hissing like a kettle, and stalked in dudgeon to the hummock which marked the very tip of Coos Hill." From Wizard and Glass by Stephen King.

    January 22, 2011

  • Umbrage.

    October 15, 2011