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cadge

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Etymology and origin of the English word cadge

Pronunciation

cadge1 to beg; to carry

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Back-formation
First attested
1400 before 1400, Alexander
Ultimate origin
English cadger

Etymology

The verb for begging and carrying is of uncertain origin.[2][3][4] Most dictionaries take the senses of carrying and begging as a back-formation from English from cadger, at first an itinerant dealer or carrier,[5][6][7][8][3] which the Merriam-Webster Collegiate traces to Middle English cadgear.[9][6] The OED, however, derives cadger from the verb,[2] and Hoad calls cadger itself of unknown origin.[7] Weekley and Partridge took the dealer's name from cage, in the sense of a wicker basket carried on the back,[10][11] and Green's Dictionary of Slang queries a pannier, perhaps ultimately from French cacher.[12] For the early sense "to fasten", the MED and Etymonline connect caggen with a Norse source, comparing Old Norse kögurr (“quilt”) and kögur-barn (“swaddled child”),[13][3] while the OED suggests a variant of catch, as with the pairs botch and bodge or grutch and grudge, and rules out a link with cage on phonetic grounds.[2] The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins also takes it as a variant of catch,[14] and the Shorter Oxford keeps that sense apart from the rest.[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

To fasten or tie: before 1400, in the alliterative Alexander, in passages the OED calls obscure.[2] The MED cites Cleanness and Pearl, in a manuscript of about 1400,[13] and Barnhart dates Pearl to about 1325.[4] The begging sense appears first in H. T. Potter's dictionary of cant, before 1790.[12] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1812, in Vaux,[4][3] and the OED to 1819, in the same author.[2]

Semantic evolution

The modern sense is usually traced to the trade of the cadger, recorded from the 15th century,[4][3][2] a Scots and northern English carrier who travelled between town and country.[14][2] The verb meant to carry about as a pedlar does his pack from 1607.[2][4][5] Scotland then had it for hawking,[15] and the northern dialects long kept it for carrying, for example corn to a mill, and figuratively for carrying tales.[16] From hawker the noun and verb moved to one who begs under pretence of being a dealer: the OED's verb means going about as a cadger or on pretence of being one,[2] and cadger means a beggar from 1851, in Mayhew.[2] The object came later: to beg from someone by 1835,[12] and to get something by begging by 1848 in Etymonline[3] and 1863 in the OED.[2] Green's Dictionary of Slang finds the word more colloquial than slang by the 20th century.[12] Lancashire had a sense of its own, to fill one's stomach (about 1748 to 1854).[2]

Timeline

  • before 1400 – to fasten, to tie (obsolete by 1875).[2]
  • 1530 – to bind the edge of a garment.[2][16]
  • 1607 – to carry about, as a pedlar does.[2][4][5]
  • c. 1748 – in Lancashire, to fill one's stomach (obsolete by 1854).[2]
  • before 1790 – to go about as a beggar, to beg.[12] Barnhart dates it to 1812,[4] and the OED to 1819.[2]
  • 1812 – noun, begging, in Vaux.[12] The OED's first record is 1819.[2]
  • 1818 – upon the kedge, begging.[12]
  • 1835 – to beg from someone.[12]
  • 1848 – to get by begging.[3] The OED's first record is 1863.[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To get something by begging or sponging: She cadged a cigarette off the porter.[17][6][5][2]
  2. To go about begging; to live by scrounging.[5][2][15]
  3. (dialect) To carry, especially a burden from place to place.[5][2][16]
  4. (obsolete, before 1400–1875) To fasten or tie.[2][13][15]

Noun

  1. (British) A person who cadges.[17]
  2. The act of begging, especially in on the cadge.[17][2][12]

Word family

  • cadger
  • codger

cadge2 falconer's frame

Confidence
Probable
First attested
1614 S. Latham, Falconry
Ultimate origin
Old French cage
Etymology tree of cadge2
inherited borrowed derived
English cage
English cadge

Etymology

The word for a falconer's frame is apparently a variant from English of cage,[2][15][18][19] a probable alteration according to Merriam-Webster Unabridged,[5] and it may have been confused with the verb meaning to carry about.[2][15][19] The OED adds that the source of the earliest quotation is unknown, and that later ones merely follow it.[2] Weekley also refers it to cage.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A frame on which hawks are carried: 1614, in the glossary to S. Latham's Falconry.[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to 1615.[5]

Timeline

  • 1614 – in falconry, a frame for carrying hawks.[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged has 1615.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (falconry) A wooden frame on which live hawks are carried.[5][15][2]
  2. A pannier.[2]

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 s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  13. ^ a b c 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)
  14. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ a b c 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)
  17. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  18. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  19. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
Cite this entry

“Cadge.” Etymologically, 6 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/cadge. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

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