cadger
(ˈkædʒə(r))
Also 5–6 Sc. cadgear.
[f. cadge v. + -er1.]
1. A carrier: esp. a species of itinerant dealer who travels with a horse and cart (or formerly with a pack-horse), collecting butter, eggs, poultry, etc., from remote country farms, for disposal in the town, and at the same time supplying the rural districts with small wares from the shops.
| c 1450 Henryson Mor. Fab. 66 A Cadgear, with capill and with creils. c 1513 Douglas æneis viii. Prol. 42 The cadgear callis furth his capill wyth crakis waill cant. 1641 Best Farm. Bks. (1856) 103 The cadgers..call in the morninge, and if wee have anythinge for them, they goe on to Garton, and call for it againe as they come backe. 1695 Kennett Par. Antiq. Gloss. s.v. Cade, Cadger, a butcher, miller, or carrier of any other load. 1816 Scott Bl. Dwarf iii, A buck hanging on each side o' his horse, like a cadger carrying calves. 1826 ― Diary in Lockhart (1839) VIII. 268 An instance of the King's errand lying in the cadger's gate. 1855 Whitby Gloss., Cadger, a carrier to a country mill, or collector of the corn to grind. 1861 Smiles Engineers II. 99 Single horse traffickers, called cadgers, plied between country towns and villages, supplying the inhabitants with salt, fish, earthenware, and articles of clothing, carried in sacks or creels hung across the horse's back. |
| b. 1827 Hone Every-day Bk. II. 1654 A rosinante, borrowed..from some whiskey smuggler or cadger. 1843 Proc. Berw. Nat. Club II. xi. 66 Many..involved in smuggling..under the name of cadgers, carried on..their contraband commerce. |
2. An itinerant dealer, a hawker, a street-seller.
| 1840 Hood Kilmansegg cclvi, He fear'd..To be cut by Lord and by cadger. 1878 Black Green Past. x. 84 A cadger's basket stood on the table. |
b. One who goes about begging or getting his living by questionable means.
| 1851 Mayhew Lond. Labour I. 339 A street-seller now-a-days is looked upon as a ‘cadger’, and treated as one. 1861 Sat. Rev. 27 Nov. 537 Home Missions..to the interesting cadgers and thieves of her rookeries. 1877 Holderness Gloss. (E.D.S.) Cadger, a loose character who goes from door to door soliciting assistance. |
3. Falconry. A man who carries hawks. (
Cf. F.
cagier ‘celui qui porte les faucons à vendre’ Littré; also
cadge n.1)
App. only modern in
Eng.| 1834 M. Edgeworth Helen xvii. (Rtldg.) 163 The German cadgers and trainers who had been engaged. |
4. Comb., as
cadger-like adj.| 1836–7 Dickens Sk. Boz (1850) 289/2 A love of all that is roving and cadgerlike in nature. |