Badger

subs. (B. E.).—1.  ‘They that buy up a quantity of Corn and hoard it up in the same Market, till the price rises; or carry it to another where it bears a better.’ [O.E.D.: Origin unknown: Fuller derived it from L. bajutare, to carry (as if a cant contraction BAJ., cf. the modern zoo, cab, etc.), but evidence is required before this can be admitted for the 15c. … By Act 5 and 6 Ed. VI. c. 14. 7, BADGERS were required to be licensed by the Justices (the origin of the hawker’s license).]

  2.  (old cant).—A river desperado; ‘villains who rob near rivers, into which they throw the bodies of those they murder’ (GROSE): see ARK-RUFFIAN.

  3.  (American thieves’).—A PANEL-THIEF (q.v.): hence BADGER-CRIB.

  4.  (schoolboys’).—A red-haired individual.

  5.  (harlotry).—A common prostitute: see TART.

  6.  (nautical).—The impersonator of Neptune in the festivities incident to ‘crossing the line’: also BADGER-BAG; see AMBASSADOR and ARTHUR.

  9.  (Wellington School).—A member of the 2nd XV. at football. [A badge is worn by each individual: see sense 1.]

  8.  (artists’).—A brush: spec. when made of badgers’ hair.

  9.  See BADGER STATE.

  Verb. (colloquial).—To worry unceasingly: as a badger when baited; to pester: usually of a helpless victim (BEE). Hence BADGERED = worried, teased; BADGERING = ‘heckling,’ persecution. Fr. aguigner.

  1794.  WOLCOT (‘Peter Pindar’), Rowland for an Oliver [Works, II. 163]. Therefore I tremble for his BADGER’D bacon.

  1796.  BURKE, Letter to Lawrence, 16 Dec. He would rather be defeated on the Rhine or Po than suffer a BADGERING every day in the House of Commons.

  1798.  O’KEEFE, Wild Oats, I. 1. At home, abroad, you will still BADGER me.

  1836.  DICKENS, Pickwick Papers, xxxiv. Each was driven to the verge of desperation by excessive BADGERING. Ibid. (1840), Barnaby Rudge (1866), I. xii. 59. The constant BADGERING and worrying of his venerable parent.

  1850.  THACKERAY, Pedennis [Works (1869), IV. 59]. I’m so pressed and BADGERED, I don’t know where to turn.

  1855.  J. G. WOOD, Sketches and Anecdotes of Animal 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.

  1862.  The Saturday Review, 8 Feb., 154. 1. The coarse expedients by which the Old Bailey advocate BADGERS and confuses a nervous witness.

  1862.  A. TROLLOPE, Orley Farm [Century]. When one has to be BADGERED like this one wants a drop of something more than ordinary.

  d. 1871.  CAROLINE FOX, Journal, 542. Inconsistent professors … BADGERED him out of Methodism into scepticism.

  TO OVERDRAW THE BADGER, verb. phr. (popular).—To overdraw a banking account.

  1843–4.  HOOD, Miss Kilmansegg and Her Precious Leg.