Also 6–7 bouge, (7 budg). [a. F. bouge-r to stir; according to Diez, prob. = Pr. bolegar to disturb oneself, It. bulicare to bubble up:—late L. *bullicare to bubble, frequentative of bullīre to boil. Cf., for the sense, Pg. bulire to move, stir.]
1. intr. To stir, to move from one’s place. (Almost always with negative expressed or implied, and said of that which stands firmly or stubbornly.) To budge against, to move against, act in hostility to, is now obs.
1590. Greene, Orl. Fur. (1599), 31. Bouge not a foot to ayd Prince Rodamant.
1603. Florio, Montaigne (1634), 148. He could not be induced to bouge from his place.
1637. Earl Monm., trans. Malvezzi’s Romulus & Tarquin, 154. [He] doth not budge against his Prince.
1663. Butler, Hud., I. III. 201. I thought th’ hadst scorn’d to budge a step, For fear.
1768. Goldsm., Good-n. Man, Epil. Not a soul will budge to give him place.
1837. W. Irving, Capt. Bonneville (1849), 207. The trapper … refused to budge an inch.
1877. Mrs. Oliphant, Makers Flor., x. 252. Showing no inclination to budge.
† b. ? To wince, flinch, shirk (after Fr. bouger).
1601. Shaks., Jul. C., IV. iii. 44. Must I bouge? Must I obserue you? Ibid. (1607), Cor., I. vi. 44. The Mouse ne’re shunn’d the Cat, as they did budge From rascals worse then they.
1630. Wadsworth, Sp. Pilgr., iii. 15. All are bound to bee there without budging at seuen.
1651. Baxter, Inf. Bapt., Apol. 10. He told them in the Pulpit, that let them budge at it how they would, it was their Hypocrisie that hindered them from receiving the truth.
2. trans. To stir or move (a heavy inert thing).
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. i. IV. (1641), 106/1. A stone so huge, That in our Age three men could hardly bouge.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxiv. (1856), 218. Although the starboard floe … parted a six-inch hawser, it failed to budge us one inch from the icy cradle.
1883. W. Blaikie, in Harper’s Mag., Nov., 903/2. Three men were trying one day to move a hen-coop weighing about six hundred pounds, and could not budge it.
