Adjacent Words

Badger definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

BADG'ER, n. In law, a person who is licensed to buy corn in one place and sell it in another, without incurring the penalties of engrossing.
BADG'ER, n. A quadruped of the genus Ursus, of a clumsy make, with short, thick legs, and long claws on the fore feet. It inhabits the north of Europe and Asia, burrows, is indolent and sleepy, feeds by night on vegetables, and is very fat. Its skin is used for pistol furniture; its flesh makes good bacon, and its hair is used for brushes to soften the shades in painting. The American badger is called the ground hog, and is sometimes white.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a native or resident of Wisconsin [syn: Wisconsinite, Badger]
2: sturdy carnivorous burrowing mammal with strong claws; widely distributed in the northern hemisphere v
1: annoy persistently; "The children teased the boy because of his stammer" [syn: tease, badger, pester, bug, beleaguer]
2: persuade through constant efforts

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: probably from badge; from the white mark on its forehead Date: 1523 1. a. any of various burrowing mammals (especially Taxidea taxus and Meles meles) of the weasel family that are widely distributed in the northern hemisphere b. the pelt or fur of a badger 2. capitalized a native or resident of Wisconsin — used as a nickname II. transitive verb Etymology: from the sport of baiting badgers Date: 1794 to harass or annoy persistently Synonyms: see bait

Britannica Concise

Any of eight species of stout-bodied carnivores (family Mustelidae) that possess an anal scent gland, powerful jaws, and large, heavy claws on their forefeet. Most species are brown, black, or gray, with markings on the face or body, and are found in SE Asia. Badgers dig to find food and to construct burrows and escape routes. The Amer. badger (Taxidea taxus), the only New World species, lives in the open, dry country of W N. America. Badgers feed mostly on small animals, especially rodents. Species may be 9-12 in. (23-30 cm) high and 13-32 in. (33-81 cm) long, excluding the 2- to 10-in. (5- to 23-cm) tail, and may weigh 2-48 lbs (1-22 kg). Badgers can be savage fighters.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 an omnivorous grey-coated nocturnal mammal of the family Mustelidae with a white stripe flanked by black stripes on its head, which lives in sets. 2 a fishing-fly, brush, etc., made of its hair. --v.tr. pester, harass, tease. Etymology: 16th c.: perh. f. BADGE, with ref. to its white forehead mark

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Badger Badg"er, n. [Of uncertain origin; perh. fr. an old verb badge to lay up provisions to sell again.] An itinerant licensed dealer in commodities used for food; a hawker; a huckster; -- formerly applied especially to one who bought grain in one place and sold it in another. [Now dialectic, Eng.]

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Badger Badg"er, n. [OE. bageard, prob. fr. badge + -ard, in reference to the white mark on its forehead. See Badge,n.] 1. A carnivorous quadruped of the genus Meles or of an allied genus. It is a burrowing animal, with short, thick legs, and long claws on the fore feet. One species (M. vulgaris), called also brock, inhabits the north of Europe and Asia; another species (Taxidea Americana or Labradorica) inhabits the northern parts of North America. See Teledu. 2. A brush made of badgers' hair, used by artists. Badger dog. (Zo["o]l.) See Dachshund.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Badger Badg"er, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Badgered (?);p. pr. & vb. n. Badgering.] [For sense 1, see 2d Badger; for 2, see 1st Badger.] 1. To tease or annoy, as a badger when baited; to worry or irritate persistently. 2. To beat down; to cheapen; to barter; to bargain.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(badgers, badgering, badgered) 1. A badger is a wild animal which has a white head with two wide black stripes on it. Badgers live underground and usually come up to feed at night. N-COUNT 2. If you badger someone, you repeatedly tell them to do something or repeatedly ask them questions. She badgered her doctor time and again, pleading with him to do something... They kept phoning and writing, badgering me to go back... Richard's mother badgered him into taking a Spanish wife. VERB: V n, V n to-inf, V n into n/-ing

Easton's Bible Dictionary

this word is found in Ex. 25:5; 26:14; 35:7, 23; 36:19; 39:34; Num. 4:6, etc. The tabernacle was covered with badgers' skins; the shoes of women were also made of them (Ezek. 16:10). Our translators seem to have been misled by the similarity in sound of the Hebrew _tachash_ and the Latin _taxus_, "a badger." The revisers have correctly substituted "seal skins." The Arabs of the Sinaitic peninsula apply the name _tucash_ to the seals and dugongs which are common in the Red Sea, and the skins of which are largely used as leather and for sandals. Though the badger is common in Palestine, and might occur in the wilderness, its small hide would have been useless as a tent covering. The dugong, very plentiful in the shallow waters on the shores of the Red Sea, is a marine animal from 12 to 30 feet long, something between a whale and a seal, never leaving the water, but very easily caught. It grazes on seaweed, and is known by naturalists as Halicore tabernaculi.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

baj'er: tachash: The word tachash occurs in the descriptions of the tabernacle in Ex 25; 26; 35; 36; 39, in the directions for moving the tabernacle as given in Nu 4, and in only one other passage, Eze 16:10, where Jerusalem is spoken of as a maiden clothed and adorned by her Lord. In nearly all these passages the word tachash occurs with `or, "skin," rendered: the King James Version "badgers' skins," the Revised Version (British and American) "sealskin," the Revised Version, margin "porpoise-skin," Septuagint dermata huakinthina. In all the passages cited in Ex and Nu these skins are mentioned as being used for coverings of the tabernacle; in Eze 16:10, for shoes or sandals. The Septuagint rendering would mean purple or blue skins, which however is not favored by Talmudic writers or by modern grammarians, who incline to believe that tachash is the name of an animal. The rendering, "badger," is favored by the Talmudic writers and by the possible etymological connection of the word with the Latin taxus and the German Dachs. The main objection seems to be that badgers' skins would probably not have been easily available to the Israelites. The badger, Meles taxus, while fairly abundant in Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, does not seem to occur in Sinai or Egypt.

A seal, Monachus albiventer (Arabic fukmeh), the porpoise, Phocoena comrnunis, and the common dolphin, Delphinus delphis, are all found in the Mediterranean. The dugong, Halicore dugong, inhabits the Indian Ocean and adjoining waters from the Red Sea to Australia. The Arabic tukhas or dukhas is near to tachash and is applied to the dolphin, which is also called delfin. It may be used also for the porpoise or even the seal, and is said by Tristram and others to be applied to the dugong. The statement of Gesenius (Boston, 1850, under the word "tachash") that the Arabs of Sinai wear sandals of dugong skin is confirmed by recent travelers, and is of interest with reference to Eze 16:10, ".... shod thee with badgers' skin" (King James Version). The dugong is a marine animal from 5 to 9 ft. in length, frequenting the shore and feeding upon seaweed. It belongs to the order Sirenia. While outwardly resembling Cetacea (whales and porpoises), the Sirenia are really more allied to the Ungulata, or hoofed animals. The dugong of the Indian Ocean and the manatee of the Atlantic and of certain rivers of Africa and South America, are the only living representatives of the Sirenia. A third species, the sea-cow of Behring Sea, became extinct in the 18th century. The seal and porpoise of the Revised Version (British and American), the dolphin, and the dugong are all of about the same size and all inhabit the seas bordering on Egypt and Sinai, so that all are possible candidates for identification with the tachash. Of the four, recent opinion seems most to favor the dugong.

Mr. S. M. Perlmann has suggested (Zoologist, set. 4, XII, 256, 1908) that the okapi is the animal indicated by tachash.

Gesenius (Leipzig, 1905) cites Bondi (Aegyptiaca, i. ff) who adduces the Egyptian root t-ch-s and makes the expression `or tachash mean "soft-dressed skin." This suits the context in every passage and is very promising explanation.

Alfred Ely-Day

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. n. Bawson (or bawsin), brock. II. v. a. Persecute, tease, worry, harry, bait, annoy, vex, plague, harass, torment, pester, trouble, bother, hector.

Moby Thesaurus

aggravate, annoy, bait, be at, bedevil, beset, blackmail, bother, bristle, brown off, bug, bullyrag, burn up, chivy, devil, discompose, distemper, disturb, dog, exact, exasperate, exercise, extort, fash, force from, get, gripe, harass, harry, heckle, hector, hound, irk, levy blackmail, miff, molest, nag, needle, nettle, nudzh, peeve, persecute, pester, pick on, pique, plague, pluck the beard, pother, provoke, pry loose from, rend, rend from, ride, rile, rip, rip from, roil, ruffle, screw, shake down, snatch from, squeeze, tear from, tease, torment, try the patience, tweak the nose, vex, worry, wrench, wrench from, wrest, wring, wring from