cadge
verb /kædʒ/
/kædʒ/
[transitive, intransitive] (British English, informal)Verb Forms
| present simple I / you / we / they cadge | /kædʒ/ /kædʒ/ |
| he / she / it cadges | /ˈkædʒɪz/ /ˈkædʒɪz/ |
| past simple cadged | /kædʒd/ /kædʒd/ |
| past participle cadged | /kædʒd/ /kædʒd/ |
| -ing form cadging | /ˈkædʒɪŋ/ /ˈkædʒɪŋ/ |
- to ask somebody for food, money, etc. especially because you cannot or do not want to pay for something yourself
- cadge something from/off somebody I managed to cadge some money off my dad.
- cadge something I cadged a lift into the city centre.
- cadge from/off somebody He cadges off all his friends.
Word Originearly 17th cent. (in the dialect sense ‘carry about’): back-formation from the noun cadger, which dates from the late 15th cent., denoting (in northern English and Scots) a travelling dealer, which led to the verb sense ‘hawk, peddle’, giving rise to the current verb senses from the early 19th cent.