cadge

• IPA^(key): /kæd͡ʒ/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ædʒ

From Middle English caggen (“to tie, fasten, bind”), probably from Old Norse. Compare Old Norse kǫgurr (“quilt”), kǫgurbarn (“swaddled child”).

cadge (third-person singular simple present cadges, present participle cadging or cadgin, simple past and past participle cadged)

1. (transitive, obsolete) To tie, fasten.
2. (Geordie) To beg.
   • 1839, Glasgow Society, Report for Repressing Juvenile Delinquency:

     Cadging on the fly is a profitable occupation in the vicinity of bathing places, and large towns. A person of this description frequently gets many shillings in the course of the day

3. (US, British, slang) To obtain something by wit or guile; to convince people to do something they might not normally do.

   Synonyms: scrounge, bum; see also Thesaurus:scrounge

   Are ye gannin te cadge a lift of yoer fatha?

   • 1956, James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room, Penguin, published 2001, Part One, Chapter 2:

     They moved about the bar incessantly, cadging cigarettes and drinks, with something behind their eyes at once terribly vulnerable and terribly hard.

   • 1960, Lionel Bart, “Food, Glorious Food,” song from the musical Oliver!

     There’s not a crust, not a crumb can we find,

     can we beg, can we borrow, or cadge […]

Likely a corruption of cage.

cadge (plural cadges)

1. (falconry) A circular frame on which cadgers carry hawks for sale.

cadge (third-person singular simple present cadges, present participle cadging or cadgin, simple past and past participle cadged)

1. To carry hawks and other birds of prey.
   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:cadge.
2. (UK, Scotland, dialect) To carry, as a burden.
   • 1607, Thomas Walkington, The Optick Glasse of Humors:

     Another Atlas that will cadge a whole world of iniuries without fainting.

3. (UK, Scotland, dialect) To hawk or peddle, as fish, poultry, etc.

• Frank Graham, editor (1987), “CADGE”, in The New Geordie Dictionary, Rothbury, Northumberland: Butler Publishing, →ISBN.
• Michael Quinion (January 15, 2005), “Cadge”, in World Wide Words.

• CAGED, caged