[app. an onomatopœic alteration of FADGE v., with vowel expressive of more clumsy action.]
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.
The first quot. is open to doubt, as the word may be a misprint for fridged.
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.
1771. Luckombe, Printing, 498. Fudge, to contrive without necessary Materials or do Work in a bungling Manner.
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?
1867. Miss Braddon, Birds of Prey, I. ii. Any one who can fudge up the faintest pretence of a claim to it.
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.
1886. C. D. Warner, Their Pilgrim, xiv. 297. A stout resolute matron with a lot of cotton lace fudged about her neck.
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.
absol. 1888. Rye, Record-searching, 9. Straining coincidences, presuming identities, and fudging judiciously.
b. To thrust in awkwardly or irrelevantly; to foist in.
1776. Foote, Bankrupt, III. Wks. 1799, II. 128. That last suppose is fudged in.
1824. Blackw. Mag., XVI. 708. This adjected part of the plan, which has been fudged in with so much unnecessary haste.
c. Naut. To fudge a days work: to work a dead reckoning by rapid rule of thumb methods.
1830. Marryat, Kings Own, viii. He could fudge a days 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 days work.
2. intr. To fit in with what is anticipated, come off; also, to turn out, result; = FADGE v. 4.
Is fadge the true reading in these passages?
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.
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.
3. [f. FUDGE int. or sb.] To talk nonsense, tell crams. Also quasi-trans.
1834. Taits Mag., I. 205. The Duchess feeds, flatters and fudges them into allegiance.
1884. Holland, Chester Gloss., Fudge, to talk nonsense; especially with the intent to cram another person.
Hence Fudged ppl. a., Fudging vbl. sb.
1860. R. F. Burton, Centr. Afr., I. v. 132. He had an addiction to fudging, which rendered the severest overseeing necessary.
1885. Rye, Hist. Norfolk, 226. A lot of fudged heraldry.
1895. Edin. Rev., April, 465. A circular dome can easily be raised with only a little fudging of the surfaces.