[app. an onomatopœic alteration of FADGE v., with vowel expressive of more clumsy action.]

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  1.  trans. To fit together or adjust in a clumsy, makeshift, or dishonest manner; to patch or ‘fake’ up; to ‘cook’ accounts. Often in schoolboy language: To make (a problem) look as if it had been correctly worked, by altering figures; to conceal the defects of (a map or other drawing) by adjustment of the parts, so that no glaring disproportion is observed; and in other like uses. Cf. FADGE v. 3. Often with up.

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  The first quot. is open to doubt, as the word may be a misprint for fridged.

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1674.  N. Fairfax, A Treatise of the Bulk and Selvedge of the World, Ep. Ded. They may … be … fudged up into such a smirkish liveliness, as may last as long as the Summers warmth holds on to cocker them.

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1771.  Luckombe, Printing, 498. Fudge, to contrive without necessary Materials or do Work in a bungling Manner.

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1861.  Sala, Dutch Pictures, xvi. 255. Do they go to chapel in surplices, and fudge impositions, and have wine parties, and slang bargees, and cap proctors, and sport their oak?

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1867.  Miss Braddon, Birds of Prey, I. ii. Any one who can fudge up the faintest pretence of a claim to it.

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1879.  F. Pollok, Sport Brit. Burmah, II. 99. They fudged their accounts so as to give little or no trouble to the almighty control department.

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1886.  C. D. Warner, Their Pilgrim, xiv. 297. A stout resolute matron … with a lot of cotton lace fudged about her neck.

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1890.  W. Westcott, in Brit. Med. Jrnl., 15 March, 620. The root of the white bryony … is sometimes fudged up by dealers to imitate the mandrake root.

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  absol.  1888.  Rye, Record-searching, 9. Straining coincidences, presuming identities, and fudging judiciously.

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  b.  To thrust in awkwardly or irrelevantly; to foist in.

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1776.  Foote, Bankrupt, III. Wks. 1799, II. 128. That last suppose is fudged in.

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1824.  Blackw. Mag., XVI. 708. This adjected part of the plan, which has been fudged in with so much unnecessary haste.

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  c.  Naut. To fudge a day’s work: to work a dead reckoning by rapid ‘rule of thumb’ methods.

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1830.  Marryat, King’s Own, viii. He could fudge a day’s work. Ibid. (1836), Midsh. Easy, xviii. 104. By the time that he did know something about navigation, he discovered that his antagonist knew nothing. Before they arrived at Malta, Jack could fudge a day’s work.

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  2.  intr. To fit in with what is anticipated, come off; also, to turn out, result; = FADGE v. 4.

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  Is fadge the true reading in these passages?

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1615.  Chamberlain, Lett., 15 June, in Crt. & Times Jas. I. (1849), I. 366. Sir Fulk Greville is once more in speech to be made a baron … but, if that fudge not, the Bishop of Winchester is in the way to be lord privy seal.

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1829.  Scott, Jrnl., 2 Feb. We told old stories; laughed and quaffed, and resolved, rashly perhaps, that we would hold the Club at least once a year, if possible twice. We will see how this will fudge. Ibid. (1831), 20 Jan. We will see how the matter fudges.

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  3.  [f. FUDGE int. or sb.] To talk nonsense, tell ‘crams.’ Also quasi-trans.

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1834.  Tait’s Mag., I. 205. The Duchess … feeds, flatters and fudges them into allegiance.

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1884.  Holland, Chester Gloss., Fudge, to talk nonsense; especially with the intent to cram another person.

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  Hence Fudged ppl. a., Fudging vbl. sb.

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1860.  R. F. Burton, Centr. Afr., I. v. 132. He had … an addiction to ‘fudging,’ which rendered the severest overseeing necessary.

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1885.  Rye, Hist. Norfolk, 226. A lot of fudged heraldry.

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1895.  Edin. Rev., April, 465. A circular dome can easily be raised with only a little fudging of the surfaces.

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