▪ I. dodge, v.
(dɒdʒ)
[Known only from 16th c.; origin unascertained. The primary meaning and sense-development are also uncertain.
Wedgwood and Skeat compare an alleged dial. Sc. dodd to jog (cf. sense 11 below), which Skeat would also identify with the base of dodder, doddle. This might perhaps pass for the sense, but the phonetic development is not evident; cf. however sled, sledge.]
1. intr. a. To move to and fro, or backwards and forwards; to keep changing one's position or shifting one's ground; to shuffle.
| 1704 Steele Lying Lover ii. i. 18 Don't stand staring, and dodging with your feet, and wearing out your Livery Hat with squeezing for an excuse. 1720 J. Quincy Hodges' Hist. Acc. Plague 189 Whenever a Buboe is uncertain and dodges, sometimes appearing and then going back. 1750 Phil. Trans. XLVI. 324 The Dragon fly..in a hovering Posture, dodging up and down in the Water. 1820 W. Irving Sketch Bk. I. 60 Whenever he went dodging about the village. |
† b. To use shifts or changes of position (with a person, etc.), so as to baffle or catch him. Obs.
| 1631 Milton On University Carrier i. 8 He had, any time this ten years full, Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and the Bull. 1677 W. Hubbard Narrative Postscr. 7 He began to dodge with his pursuers. 1724 De Foe Mem. Cavalier ii. 182 The King..had been dodging with Essex eight or ten Days. 1816 Scott Old Mort. xxxvi, Do you think we can stand here all day to be turning and dodging with you, like greyhounds after a hare? |
c. To move to and fro about, around, or behind any obstacle, so as to elude a pursuer, a missile, or a blow, or to get a sudden advantage of an enemy.
| 1681 R. Knox Hist. Ceylon 22 Trees, about which they may dodg. 1756 Gentl. Mag. XXVI. 426 Dodging behind the mizzen mast, and falling down upon the deck at the noise of the enemy's shot. 1845 Darwin Voy. Nat. iv. (1879) 77 He was obliged to dodge round his horse. 1859 Tennent Ceylon viii. iii. II. 331 Amongst full grown timber, a skilful runner can escape an elephant by dodging round the trees. |
2. intr. † a. To go this way and that way in one's speech or action; to be off and on; to parley, palter, haggle about terms. Obs.
| 1568 Jewel Answ. Harding's Detect. Foul Err. in Def. Apol. (1611) 127 If yee doubt heereof, leaue dodging in your note Bookes, and read S. Cyprian, and ye shall find it. 1577 Stanyhurst Descr. Irel. iii. in Holinshed II. 25/1 The merchant and he stood dodging one with the other in cheaping the ware. 1684 tr. Bonet's Merc. Compit. ix. 335 If the Disease go not off presently, we must not stand dodging, but give a gentle purging potion. a 1763 Byrom Careless Content (R.), For lack or glut, for loss or gain, I never dodge, nor up nor down. |
b. To play fast and loose, change about deceitfully; to shuffle with a person; to prevaricate.
| 1575 J. Still Gamm. Gurton v. ii. in Hazl. Dodsley III. 254 Fie, dost but dodge. 1614 Raleigh Hist. World v. iii. §12. 418 They did him no manner of good, but rather dodged with him, euen in the little courtesie which they most pretended. 1708 Prior Turtle & Sp. 109 With Fate's lean tipstaff none can dodge. 1859 Smiles Self-Help xiii. (1860) 340 He does not shuffle nor prevaricate, dodge nor skulk. |
† c. to dodge it: to haggle. Obs.
| 1652 Urquhart Jewel Wks. (1834) 267 That frankness of disposition..not permitting him to dodge it upon inches and ells. |
3. trans. To play fast and loose with; to baffle or parry by shifts and pretexts; to trifle with.
| 1573 G. Harvey Letter-bk. (Camden) 15 Thus was I doggid and dodgid on everi side. 1663 J. Spencer Disc. Prodigies (1665) 256 Loth to be dodged and abused with endless uncertainties and dissimilitudes. 1697 Occas. Conformity 27 To make the matter a Game, to dodge Religions, and go in the Morning to Church, and in the Afternoon to the Meeting. 1855 Tennyson Sea Dreams 145 He dodged me with a long and loose account. 1868 E. Edwards Raleigh I. xxiv. 559 The Crown lawyers had again to dodge the case..by a trick of their craft. |
4. To avoid an encounter with (a person or thing) by changes of position, shifts, or doublings; to elude (a pursuer, etc.) by shifts or sideward movements.
| 1680 Otway C. Marius iv. ii. Wks. 1727 II. 239 Asunder we may dodge our Fate. 1713 Derham Phys. Theol. iv. xiv. (1723) note, The Doublings of the Hare..to dodge and deceive the Dogs. 1893 E. B. Knight Where three Empires meet xxiv. 366 Rocks..would come rolling down upon us, and had to be nimbly dodged. 1893 W. Forbes-Mitchell Remin. Gt. Mutiny 19 Where blows aimed at the victims had evidently been dodged. |
5. To follow stealthily, and with shifts to avoid discovery, as by keeping behind intervening objects. (Cf. dog v. 1.)
| 1727 Fielding Love in Sev. Masq. Wks. 1775 I. 58 La. Promise not to dodge us. Wi. Not even to look after you. 1814 F. Burney Wanderer IV. 51 If they saw any suspicious persons dodging them. 1840 Lady C. Bury Hist. Flirt xi, I will never quit you..I will dodge your steps. |
6. To move (a thing) to and fro, or up and down; to lead (an examinee) to and fro in a subject of examination and not straight on.
| 1820 Sporting Mag. VI. 266 Two pieces of wood had been introduced between the hoof and the shoe; after replacing the shoe again the horse was dodged, and discovered to be perfectly sound. 1861 Dickens Gt. Expect. viii, He said, pompously, ‘Seven times nine, boy’! and how should I be able to answer, dodged in that way? 1880 Daily Tel. 7 Oct., It would be absolutely childish to go on dodging the Fleets about from Cattaro to Volo [etc.]. |
7. intr. Change-ringing. Said of a bell rung in a chime, when, instead of following in its regular ascending or descending order, as in plain hunting, it is shifted one place in the opposite direction, and then in the next round back again to resume its course, until another dodge occurs.
| 1684 R. H. School Recreat. 101 In this Bob, when the Treble leaves the two Hind Bells, they dodge 'till it comes there again, and 'till the Treble gives Way for the dodging again of the said two Hind Bells, the two first Bells dodge, but after cease dodging, when the two Hind Bells dodge. 1872 Ellacombe Ch. Bells Devon ii. 29. 1880 Grove Dict. Music s.v. Changes, The first three bells go through the six changes of which they are capable..while the bells behind ‘dodge’. |
8. intr. (techn.) To occupy positions alternately on the one side and the other of a medial line.
| 1874 Knight Dict. Mech., Dodging, said of mortises, when they are not in the same plane at the hub. By spreading the butts of the spokes where they enter the hub, dodging on each side of a median line, alternately, the wheel is stiffened against a lateral strain. |
9. trans. Photogr. To use any artifice to improve (the negative) for printing.
| 1883 Hardwick's Photogr. Chem. (ed. Taylor) 335 The important operations of ‘dodging’ and ‘printing-in’. 1889 Anthony's Photogr. Bulletin (U.S.A.) II. 349 That ‘dodging’ had been resorted to to make the tree print well. |
10. trans. Salt-making (Cheshire). (See quot.)
| 1884 Cheshire Gloss., Dodging, salt-making term. Knocking scale off the plates over the fire. |
11. trans. and intr. (dial.) To jog (see quots.).
| 1802 Sibbald Chron. Sc. Poet. Gloss. (Jam.), Dodge, to jog, or trudge along. 1825 Brockett N.C. Wds., Dodge, to jog, to incite. 1869 Lonsdale Gloss., Dodge, (1) to jog, incite. 1877 Holderness Gloss., Dodge-on, to go along, making the best of an affliction..‘Hey! it a bad job, but Ah mun dodge-on somehoo or other’. |
† 12. trans. To insinuate into by a dodge. Obs.
| 1687 R. L'Estrange Answ. Diss. 47 A Paradox of Conscience Dodg'd into a Popular Scheme of Government! |
13. to dodge Pompey: (a) to evade work (Naval slang); (b) see quot. 1930 (Austral. slang).
| 1929 F. C. Bowen Sea Slang 38 Dodging Pompey, avoiding work on shipboard. Originally a naval phrase entirely. 1930 Billis & Kenyon Pastures New iii. 46 Browne detailed the laws passed, not to encourage the overlander, but rather to counteract his habit of stealing grass—‘dodging Pompey’, as it was known. 1961 F. H. Burgess Dict. Sailing 73 Dodging Pompey, skulking, or avoiding work by the use of any semi-legitimate excuse. |
▪ II. dodge, n.1
(dɒdʒ)
[f. prec. vb.]
† 1. The act of slipping aside so as to elude a person or thing; the ‘slip’, the ‘go-by’. Obs. or dial.
| 1575 J. Still Gamm. Gurton ii. i. in Hazl. Dodsley III. 193 There was a fouler fault, my Gammer ga' me the dodge. 1606 Wily Beguiled ibid. IX. 256 Shall I trouble you so far as to take some pains with me? I am loth to have the dodge. 1749 Fielding Tom Jones vii. iv, I was hard run enough by your mother for one man; but after giving her a dodge, here's another..follows me upon the foil. 1880 Mrs. Parr Adam & Eve II. 116 He was forced to avoid him by giving a sudden dodge to one side. |
2. a. A shifty trick, an artifice to elude or cheat.
| 1638 Featly Strict. Lyndom. i. 201, I have beate the Iesuit heretofore out of this dodge. 1681 H. More Exp. Dan. Pref. 64 To put a dodge upon the Protestants to weaken their Faith. 1837 Dickens Pickw. xvi, ‘It was all false, of course?’ ‘All, sir’, replied Mr. Weller, ‘reg'lar do, sir; artful dodge.’ 1860 Bright Sp. Church Rates 27 Apr., I am altogether against any kind of dodge by which this matter may be..settled. |
b. on the dodge: engaged in crooked or dishonest proceedings.
| 1904 ‘O. Henry’ Heart of West (1912) xi. 214 I've been on the dodge for a month, and I'd like to rest up. 1920 J. M. Barrie Kiss for Cinderella i. 26 If you wanted to get into Buckingham Palace on the dodge, how would you slip by the policeman? |
3. colloq. and slang. A clever or adroit expedient or contrivance (cf. trick in similar use): vulgarly extended to a machine, a natural phenomenon, etc.
| 1842 E. FitzGerald Lett. (1889) I. 111 The alternation of green and corn crops is a good dodge. 1849 Thackeray Pendennis xxix, [They] have many harmless arts..and innocent dodges (if we may be permitted to use an excellent phrase that has become vernacular since the appearance of the last dictionaries). 1855 Smedley H. Coverdale iii, I'd start to America, and do Niagara, and all the other picturesque dodges [etc.]. 1867 Ld. Malmesbury Memoirs of an Ex-Minister (1884) II. 376 To show us how to light a good fire by some dodge of lighting the wood at the back. |
4. Change-ringing. See quot. 1684, and cf. dodge v. 7.
| 1684 R. H. School Recreat. 93 The..Meaning of a Dodge is this; any Bell that is coming down, and is to make a Dodge, must move up again one Bell higher, and any Bell that is going up, and is to make a Dodge, must come down one Bell lower, and then up or down as the Course of such Bell requires. 1880 Grove Dict. Music s.v. Changes, In change-ringing terms, the 4th and 5th [bells] are said to ‘make places’, and the 2nd and 3rd are said to make a ‘double dodge’. |
▸ dodgeball n. orig. U.S. a game in which the object is to throw a ball so that it hits and thereby eliminates other players.
There are several versions of the game, which vary with respect to the type and number of balls used, whether players compete as teams or individuals, etc.
| 1900 Davenport (Iowa) Daily Republican 25 Apr. 7/4 *Dodge Ball... Miss Kessey. Captain... Miss Achter. Captain. 1974 I. D. Yalom & G. Elkin Every Day gets a little Closer iii. 105 There she was, ten years old.., playing dodge ball, sticking her tongue out at me and neatly ducking every throw I made. 2004 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 25 Aug. 15 Dodgeball..has been described as a Darwinian battle in which only the strong survive and the weak just get pummelled. |
▪ III. dodge, n.2 north. dial.
A large irregular piece, a lump.
| 1562 Wills & Inv. N.C. (Surtees 1835) 207, j dodge of iron viij{supd}. Fowr axes xvj{supd}. 1825 Jamieson, Dodge, a pretty large cut or slice of any kind of food. Dodgel, a large piece or lump. [1895 Still in use.] |