Etymologically
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budge

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /bʌd͡ʒ/[1]

budge1 lambskin fur

Etymology

The word for the fur is inherited from Middle English bugee, also bogey and bouge,[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman bogee, a fur of lambskin recorded in Anglo-Norman from 1298.[2][5][3] Its further origin is disputed.[6][4][3] The Middle English Dictionary compares Medieval Latin bogea and perhaps bulgia, and thinks the word may be akin to Old French bouge (“wallet”);[3] the American Heritage Dictionary derives it from Medieval Latin bugia, probably from Latin bulga (“leather bag”), the source of budget.[4] Dictionary.com also calls it perhaps akin to budget.[7] The OED and the Shorter Oxford call the origin unknown:[6][8] the OED notes that the word is usually identified with bouge, a leather bag, but finds the connection of sense unclear and the early forms of two syllables, and suggests Old French bouchet (“a kid”) if the first sense was kidskin.[6] The Shorter Oxford equates it with Medieval Latin buggetum.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Sheepskin used as fur: the Middle English Dictionary cites bugee from a customs record of 1303, and has buge as a hood's fur in 1310.[3] The OED's first record is from 1395, of lamb's skin with the wool dressed outwards.[6] Merriam-Webster dates the word to the 14th century.[2]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English Dictionary defines the medieval fur as sheepskin, as distinct from lambskin,[3] while the OED, Merriam-Webster and Johnson describe it as lambskin with the wool outwards.[6][2][9] It lined gowns and mantles in 15th-century wills and inventories,[3] and the Middle English Dictionary records bouge rowe as a name for Furriers' Row.[3] Used attributively, the word described clothing made of budge or people wearing it;[8] the Shorter Oxford treats the later sense "solemn, pompous" as a development of this use.[8] The fur is now mentioned only in historical writing.[8][2]

Timeline

  • 1303 – sheepskin or lambskin fur, in a customs record.[3]
  • 1395 – lamb's skin with the wool dressed outwards.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (historical) A fur made from lambskin or sheepskin dressed with the wool outward, formerly used to trim gowns.[2][6][8]

budge2 move, give way

Etymology

The verb meaning to move is borrowed from Middle French bouger (“to stir”), also bougier,[10][2][6][7][11] from bougier,[2] from Vulgar Latin *bullicō (“to bubble, boil”),[10][2][11][4] a frequentative of Latin bulliō (“to boil, bubble”),[7][6] from bulla (“bubble”).[12][13][8] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from 1354.[5] Etymonline explains the sense as "boil", hence "be in motion".[11] The derivation goes back to Diez, and the OED, Hoad and Weekley support it with Occitan bolegar (“to disturb oneself”) and Italian bulicare (“to bubble up”);[6][14][15] Weekley calls it rather speculative but strongly supported.[15] Etymonline and the OED compare Spanish bullir (“to move about, bustle”) and Portuguese bulir (“to move, stir”).[11][6] The verb is related to boil.[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To move from one's place, to stir, usually with a negative: 1578 in Merriam-Webster,[2] before 1592 in the OED, in Robert Greene's Orlando Furioso.[6] Barnhart dates the verb to 1590, and Etymonline the intransitive use to the 1580s.[10][11]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb was used almost always with a negative, of something that stands firm or stubbornly.[6] The transitive sense, to move a heavy thing, followed in 1605,[6] or in the 1590s according to Etymonline.[11] Shakespeare used it, perhaps after the French, for "to wince, flinch", a sense the OED records only until 1651.[6] In 16th- and 17th-century thieves' slang budge was a general verb of stealthy action, as in budge out, to sneak off,[11] and in 1610 it meant to leave.[16] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to stir; to move off the place" and called it "a low word".[9][15] Hotten's slang dictionary (1859) has it for "to inform".[16] The figurative sense, to change one's position or opinion, is first recorded in Noël Coward's Private Lives (1930),[6] and dialects from Scotland to Devon used the verb for "to give way, yield" and "to hurry".[17]

Timeline

  • 1578 – to move, stir, give way.[2]
  • 1605 – to move a heavy thing.[6]
  • 1610 – in thieves' slang, to leave.[16]
  • before 1616 – to wince or flinch, in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (obsolete by 1651).[6]
  • 1859 – in slang, to inform.[16]
  • 1930 – to change one's position or opinion.[6]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To move, even slightly; to shift or give way, usually with a negative: The cat would not budge from the warm chair.[2][12][6]
  2. To make something move: Nobody could budge the old wardrobe.[2][12][6]
  3. To change, or make someone change, an opinion or position; to yield: The council refused to budge on the plan.[2][12][6]

Word family

  • budger
  • unbudged
  • unbudging

budge3 pompous, solemn

Etymology

The adjective meaning pompous or solemn is of unknown origin.[2][6] Johnson called it of uncertain etymology.[9] The OED tentatively compares bug and bog as adjectives,[6] but sees a reference to the fur in its first quotation and suggests that a “budge doctor” was at first one who wore budge fur;[6] the Shorter Oxford derives the sense from the fur noun used attributively.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Stiff, formal, pompous in manner: 1599 in Merriam-Webster.[2] The OED's first record is Milton's “budge doctors of the Stoic fur” in Comus (1637),[6] the passage Johnson quoted.[9]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined the adjective as "surly; stiff; formal".[9] The OED's records of it end in 1782,[6] the year of Cowper's “the solemn fop, significant and budge”,[17] but the word lived on in the dialects of Sussex, Hampshire and Wiltshire for "grave, solemn", and in Wiltshire budgy meant sulky.[17] In southern and eastern English dialect it also meant brisk and lively, from 1691 to 1721.[6]

Timeline

  • 1599 – stiff, formal or pompous in manner.[2]
  • 1691 – in dialect, brisk, lively (to 1721).[6]
  • 1782 – still in literary use, in Cowper.[17][6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. (archaic) Austere or stiff in manner; pompous, solemn.[2][6][9]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  5. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  10. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  14. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  15. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  16. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  17. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)