cadge

verb

ˈkaj 

cadged; cadging; cadges

transitive verb

: to obtain (something) for free often by persuading or imposing on another : sponge

… he got mixed up with this dreadful girl who cadged chewing gum from the American soldiers and sneered at him.

—Eva Ibbotson

Teens are spending huge amounts of money themselves, some of it cadged from their families and the rest from after-school jobs.

—Peg Tyre et al.

… Coleman, as the 15-year-old sports editor of his high school newspaper in Corpus Christi, Texas, once cadged an interview out of Jack Dempsey.

—Jack McCallum

also : to take, use, or borrow (something) without acknowledgment

Later, when she orders the Athenian senators to step down or die, their unlikely answer—"We no longer are defensible"—is cadged from "Henry V."

—Jesse Green

cadger noun

Did you know?

As long ago as the 1400s, peddlers traveled the British countryside, each with a packhorse or a horse and cart—first carrying produce from rural farms to town markets, then returning with small wares to sell to country folk. The Middle English name for such traders was cadgear; Scottish dialects rendered the term as cadger. Etymologists are pretty sure the verb cadge was created as a back-formation of cadger (which is to say, it was formed by removal of the "-er" suffix). At its most general, cadger meant "carrier," and the verb cadge meant "to carry." More specifically, the verb meant to go about as a cadger or peddler. By the 1800s, it was used when someone who posed as a peddler turned out to be more of a beggar, from which arose our present-day use.

Examples of cadge in a Sentence

She cadged money from her sister.

Recent Examples on the Web

Schwarzenegger made a pilgrimage to Washington to cadge more money from the government, but came home empty-handed. —Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 10 June 2025

Ansa works in a Helsinki supermarket, collecting expired food and cadging the odd casserole for her dinner. —Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 4 Dec. 2023

One weekend, a colleague cadged a Chrysler minivan. —Brett Berk, Car and Driver, 1 May 2023

At a more than two-hour sentencing hearing before Chief U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Providence Tuesday, prosecutors and victims described the litany of Cavanaugh’s schemes, from bilking charities out of hundreds of thousands of dollars to cadging beers at a local bar. —Brian Amaral, BostonGlobe.com, 14 Mar. 2023

Word History

Etymology

back-formation from Scots cadger carrier, huckster, from Middle English cadgear

First Known Use

circa 1790, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for cadge

• badge
• hajj
• madge

Podcast

Get Word of the Day delivered to your inbox!