| 释义 |
▪ I. badger, n.1|ˈbædʒə(r)|
Forms: 5 bager, 7 (?) bodger, budger, 5– badger.
[See badge v.2, and note below.]
One who buys corn and other commodities and carries them elsewhere to sell; an itinerant dealer who acts as a middleman between producer (farmer, fisherman, etc.) and consumer; a cadger, hawker, or huckster. Still common in the dialects.
By Act 5 and 6 Edw. VI. c. 14 §7 Badgers were required to be licensed by the Justices (the origin of the hawker's license). Among the commodities in which they are said to have dealt are named corn (especially), fish, butter, and cheese. They were obnoxious to the charge of regrating, and hence the word is in some 17th c. vocabularies, e.g. Robertson's Phraseol. Gen. (196), explained as ‘an ingrosser, a forebuyer, or forestaller of the market, one that buyeth corn and other provisions beforehand.’
a1500Office of Mayor of Bristol in E.E. Gilds 424 The bagers, such as bryngeth whete to towne, as wele in trowys, as otherwyse, by lande and by watir. 1552Act 5–6 Edw. VI, xiv. §7 The Buying of any Corn, Fish, Butter, or Cheese, by any such Badger, Lader, Kidder or Carrier, as shall bee assigned and allowed to that office or doing by three Justices of peace. 1562Act 5 Eliz. xii, Badgers of Corn, and Drovers of Cattle, to be licensed. 1587Fleming Contn. Holinshed III. 588/2 No badger, baker, brewer, or purueior, to buie graine, vntill an houre after the full market begin. 1610Holland Camden's Brit. i. 555 All the inhabitants be as it were a kind of hucksters, or badgers. 1641Best Farm. Bks. (1856) 101 The badgers come farre, many of them; whearefore theire desire is to buy soone, that they may be goinge betimes, for feare of beinge nighted. 1674Ray N. Countr. Wds., Badger, such as buy Corn, or other Commodities in one place, and carry them to another. 1695Kennett Par. Antiq. Gloss. s.v. Cart-body, Badger, Budger, or Bodger, i.e. a carrier or retailer of Bodges or bags of corn. 1788W. Marshall E. Yorkshire, Badger, a huckster. 1825Britton Beauties of Wiltsh., Badger, a corn-dealer. 1858Ladies Bever Hollow II. iv. 68 ‘Our Butter fetches a penny a pound more than other people's from the badger.’ 1863Atkinson Whitby Gloss., Badger, a huckster; a man who goes about the country with ass and panniers, to buy up butter, eggs, and fruit, which he will sell at a near market-town; and before shops were common in every village, he dealt in needles, thread, trimmings, and the like, for which he was open to exchange. [Also in the following Glossaries of E.D.S.: Swaledale (Meal-seller), Huddersf., Mid Yorksh., Cumbrld. (Flour or corn-dealer; also pedlar, huckster), Worcester, N. Lancash. (Travelling huckster or dealer, cadger), Lancash. (Keeper of small provision shop).]
[Note. Conjectures as to the derivation, and possible connexion with next word, depend greatly upon the original meaning. On the assumption that this was ‘corn-merchant,’ bager, badger, has been identified with obs. F. bladier, ‘a Marchant or Ingrosser of corne,’ Cotgr. (properly Provençal = OF. blaier, blayer); but this is phonetically inadmissible. If, however, we assume bager to represent a ME. *blager, with l unaccountably lost, this might represent an OF. *blaagier, f. blaage (bleage, bladage) harvest, corn-supply, feudal due paid in corn, f. ble, bled in med.L. bladum corn, wheat. (See H. Nicol Proc. Philol. Soc. 19 Dec. 1879.) But no such links between F. blaage and Eng. bager are found either in F. or Eng.; so that there is positively no evidence connecting badger with any deriv. of F. blé. And indeed a consideration of the whole (46) quotations which we have for the word leads to the conviction that the bager, badger, had no essential connexion with corn, any more than the lader, kidder, or carrier, named along with him in the statutes, proclamations and law-books. At present it is most in accordance with the facts to take badger as the agent-noun from badge v.].
▪ II. badger, n.2|ˈbædʒə(r)|
Also 6 bageard, 6–7 badgerd.
[Only mod.Eng.: of doubtful origin. Prob. (as E. Müller suggests) from badge n. + -ard, in reference to the white mark borne like a badge on its forehead: cf. for the sense bauson and ball n.3, for the formation ballard.
Most etymologists have assumed the identity of this with the prec. word, citing the presumed analogy of the mod.F. name of the quadruped, blaireau, in 15th c. blereau, taken as a dim. of blaier, meaning ‘little corn-merchant or corn-hoarder,’ an appellation arising out of popular notions of the habits of the animal, ‘which, it is said, makes away with much buck-wheat’ (Littré). But this derivation seems to be erroneous. No OF. *blaërel, representing a L. *blādārellus, from blādārius, is found. And it seems certain that OF. blariau (12-13th c.), later bléreau, blaireau, in Flanders blairiau, blariau, in Normandy blierel, blérel, compared with OF. blarie, blaire ‘the bald-coot,’ mod.F. dial. (Flanders, Picardy) blarie, blairie, (Normandy) blérie, must be referred to MDu. and Flem. blaer ‘bald,’ MDu. blare, Flem. blaere, Du. blaar ‘a white spot on the forehead of an animal.’ Blaireau thus corresponds exactly to bauson, and its analogy strongly favours the derivation of badge-ard from badge.]
1. a. A plantigrade quadruped (Meles vulgaris), intermediate between the weasels and the bears, found in Europe and Middle Asia; it is a nocturnal, hybernating animal, feeding on small mammals, game, eggs, fruit, and roots, and digging for itself a burrow, which it defends fiercely against attack, biting and maiming dogs with its powerful jaws. Earlier names were brock, and bauson; also grey. The Indian and North American species differ but slightly from the European.
1523Fitzherb. Husb. §71 A bauson or a badger. 1534More Comf. agst. Trib. ii. Wks. 1183/2 Bageard. 1598Sylvester Du Bartas (1608) 514 As the selfe-swelling Badgerd..First at the entry of his barrow fights. 1720Swift Apollo to Dean Wks. 1755 IV. i. 20 Grey as a badger. 1741Compl. Fam.-Piece ii. i. 298 A Badger is known by several Names, as a Gray, a Brock, a Boreson or Bauson; the young ones are called Pigs; the Male is called the Boar, and the Female the Sow. 1877Coues Fur Anim. i. 2 The cruel sport which Badgers have afforded from time immemorial. [See also 5.]
fig.1642Fuller Holy & Prof. St. ii. viii. 80 Erasmus was a badger in his jeeres, where he did bite he would make his teeth meet.
b. erron. applied to the beaver and otter.
1591Percivall Sp. Dict., Bivaro, a badger or brocke, Fiber, castor. 1601Chester Love's Mart. cxvii, The watrie Badger.
c. Cape-badger or Rock-badger: the daman (Hyrax Capensis). honey-badger: the ratel (Ratellus mellivorus). Badger (in Australia): the wombat.
1824Griffith Cuvier III. 429 Dutch Colonists..call the Cape Hyrax, Klip daasie, or the Rock Badger. 1861Hulme Moquin-Tandon ii. iii. ii. 122 The Daman of the Cape..commonly called Badger of the Rocks. 1870Nicholson Zool. (1880) 661 The Wombat, often called by the colonists the ‘badger.’
2. (in U.S.) Nickname of natives or inhabitants of Wisconsin.
1833C. F. Hoffman Winter in West (1835) I. 207 A keen eyed, leather-belted ‘badger’ from the mines of Ouisconsin. 1856Emerson Eng. Traits iv. 54 Our ‘Hoosiers,’ ‘Suckers,’ and ‘Badgers,’ of the American woods.
3. a. An artificial fly (for angling); b. a brush (for painting or shaving) made of badgers' hair.
1787Best Angling 107 The late Badger..Dubbed with the fur off a black badger's skin.
4. a. Slang phr. to overdraw one's badger (in humorous reference to badger-drawing; see 5): to overdraw one's banking account.
a1845Hood Kilmansegg (D.) His checks no longer drew the cash, Because..He had overdrawn his badger.
b. to draw the badger: to entice (a badger, an opponent) to come into the open. Cf. draw v. 36, badger-drawing (badger n.2 5).
1844[see draw v. 36]. 1857Trollope Three Clerks III. iii. 50 There is a sport prevalent among the downs in Hampshire... Men and boys..congregate together on a hill side, at the mouth of a narrow hole, and proceed, with the aid of a well-trained bull-dog, to draw a badger. Ibid. 51 So also at Westminster—with a difference... The badger when drawn has to take his place outside the hole and fight again..while the victorious bull-dog assumes a state of badgerdom..and in his turn submits to be baited. 1870Chambers's Jrnl. 2 July 420/1 Proceed to the sick man's room, with the avowed intention of ‘drawing the badger’. 1890Daily Chron. 19 Sept., The Parnellite taunts regarding Balfour's indifference have at last drawn the badger.
5. Comb. badger-baiting, -drawing, the cruel sport of setting dogs to draw out a badger from its (artificial) hole, e.g. a barrel; hence badger-baiter; badger-dog (= Ger. dachshund), a long-bodied short-legged dog used in drawing a badger from its earth; badger-fly (= badger 3 a); badger game, an extortion scheme in which a man is lured usu. by a woman (the badger or badger-worker) into a compromising situation and is then surprised and blackmailed by her accomplice; badger-legged a., having legs of unequal length, as the badger was vulgarly supposed to have; badger-like a. and adv., like or in the manner of a badger; ˈbadger-pied a., (of a foxhound) parti-coloured like a badger; hence badger-pie, such a hound; badger plane (see quot.); badger softener [softener 2], a badger-hair brush used in wood-graining and decorating; Badger State U.S., the State of Wisconsin; badger tongs, tongs used to grasp the badger as it emerges from its hole, or to pull it out.
1818Scott Rob Roy xiii, Go and see what is become of the *badger-baiters.
1790Loiterer 6 Mar. 6 The object of this grand cavalcade had been a *Badger-baiting on Bullingdon-Green. 1801Strutt Sports & Past. iii. vii. §19 Badger-baiting. In order to give the better effect to this diversion, a hole is dug in the ground for the retreat of the animal; and the dogs run at him singly in succession.
1864Reader No. 85. 200/1 The pug, the bulldog, and the *badger-dog.
1838Dickens O. Twist (1850) 155/2 Young lords went to see cockfighting and *badger-drawing.
1787Best Angling 105 The *Badger Fly..is an excellent killer.
[1858Spirit of Times 27 Feb. 412/2 He was the ‘badger’ at Moll Hodge's famous ‘panel’ establishment, in West Broadway and was sent up for 4 years and 8 months.] 1909in Cent. Dict. Suppl., *Badger game [defined]. 1924G. C. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 228, I know of one case where a man alone worked a variation of the badger game on women. 1936E. S. Gardner Case of Stuttering Bishop (1937) xiv. 217 It looks too damned much like a badger game. 1962H. Kane Killer's Kiss xx. 156 She stood naked... ‘You're in one hell of a lot of trouble,’ he said. The old badger game.
a1704R. Lestrange (J.) His body crooked all over, big-bellied, *badger-legged.
1656Artif. Handsom. 60 Poor Vulcanists, who ballance the inequality of their heels, or *badger leggs, by the..help of the shoemaker.
1651Cleveland Poems 34 Come keen Iambicks, with your Badgers feet, And *Badger-like, bite till your teeth do meet.
1867‘Stonehenge’ Dogs of Brit. Islands 101 When the colours blend or amalgamate, the hounds are said to be ‘pied’. Hare, *badger, red, tan, and yellow pies are the best. 1890Daily News 31 Mar. 3/2 The Wiltshire squire, whose spurs were earned with the Badminton ‘badger-pies’.
1845J. Mayer Sportsman's Directory (ed. 7) ix. 147 Hounds are grizzled, brindled, *badger-pied, &c., which colours are indicative of strength. 1922R. Leighton Compl. Bk. Dog iv. xvi. 245 The Sealyham..is..frequently whole white, but also white with brown, lemon, or badger-pied markings.
a1877Knight Dict. Mech. I. 207/2 *Badger Plane, a panel plane whose mouth is cut on the skew, and from side to side, so as to work up close to a corner in making a rabbet or sinking.
1878A. R. & P. van der Burg Imitation of Woods & Marbles 4 The speckles must be immediately touched up by the *badger softener in the form of the grain by which the pores desired are obtained. 1949Archit. Rev. CVI. 244 The traditional tools of the grainer and marbler are numerous... Sash tool, jamb duster, flogger, badger softener,..all have their place in the craftsman's bag.
1850E. S. Seymour Sk. Minnesota 86 We have abundant reason to anticipate that Minnesota..will not lag far behind the *Badger State. 1872Schele de Vere Americanisms 662 Wisconsin, abounding during early days in badgers, has ever since retained the name of Badger State. 1904N.Y. Times 26 July 3 The Speaker will make several speeches in the Badger State.
1859F. Francis Newton Dogvane I. i. 11 Dog-chains, *badger-tongs, rabbit-hutches. 1928Sunday Dispatch 15 July 2 Mr. Tinker..got his badger-tongs... ‘Get the tongs round his neck—quick!’ said the Master..as he pushed forward the long iron instrument.
1910New England Mag. July 587/2 A woman who decoys men and then her accomplice (alleged husband) blackmails them is called a ‘*badger-worker’.
▪ III. badger, n.3
[f. badge n. + -er1.]
One who wears a badge (of a special kind).
1890Farmer Slang I. 95/1 Badger..6. (Wellington School). A fellow who has got his ‘badge’ for play in the 2nd xv. at football. 1920John Bull 28 Aug. 16/1 There are idle Badgers at Elmswell, where the job of Rate Collector was going the other day. 1925Glasgow Herald 23 July 7 A Doggett badger is a man to be reckoned with in the rowing world.
▪ IV. badger, v.|ˈbædʒə(r)|
[f. badger n.2]
1. To make a badger of, bait like a badger; hence, to subject (one who cannot escape from it) to persistent worry or persecution; to pester, tease.
1794O'Keefe Wild Oats i. i, At home, abroad..you will still badger me! 1855Wood Anim. Life 238, A ‘brock’..led such a persecuted life, that to ‘badger’ a man came to be the strongest possible term for irritating, persecuting, and injuring him in every way. 1862Sat. Rev. 8 Feb. 154 The coarse expedients by which the Old Bailey advocate badgers and confuses a nervous witness.
2. dial. [f. badger n.1] ‘To barter; to banter over a bargain; to beat down in price.’
1875in Whitby Gloss.; also in Gloss. of Manley & Corringham (Lincolnsh.) |