cadge

Possibly a corruption of cage, from Old French.

• IPA^(key): /kæd͡ʒ/

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• Rhymes: -ædʒ

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. (Tyneside) To beg.

   Are ye gannin te cadge a lift of yoer fatha?

2. (US, Britain, 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

   • 1956, James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room, Penguin, 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 […]

3. To carry hawks and other birds of prey.
   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:cadge.
4. (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.

5. (UK, Scotland, dialect) To hawk or peddle, as fish, poultry, etc.
6. (UK, Scotland, dialect) To intrude or live on another meanly; 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

• Frank Graham (1987) The New Geordie Dictionary, →ISBN
• Michael Quinion (15 January 2005), “Cadge”, in World Wide Words.

• CAGED, caged