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 is 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. Ibid. (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. 339/1. 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 CANGE sb.1) App. only modern in Eng.
1834. Mar. 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), 89/2. A love of all that is roving and cadger-like in nature.
