night, and may not be able to see this as clearly as you would at another time.
1841. Punch, I., p. 74. The Sultan got very fuddled last night with forbidden juice in the harem, and tumbled down the ivory steps.
1864. Glasgow Citizen, 19 Nov. No other word has so many equivalents as 'drunk.'. . . One very common and old one has escaped Mr. Hotten—fuddled.
1888. Daily News, 28 Nov. Music halls would soon decrease in numbers if drink were not sold in them, for sober people would not go to see spectacles only attractive to those who were half fuddled.
Fudge, subs. (colloquial).—Nonsense;
humbug; an exaggeration;
a falsehood. [Provincial French,
fuche, feuche; an exclamation of
contempt from Low Ger. futsch
= begone; see, however, quots.
1700 and 1712.] Also as an exclamation
of contempt.
1700. Isaac Disraeli, Notes on the Navy. There was, in our time, one Captain Fudge, a commander of a merchant-man; who, upon his return from a voyage, always brought home a good cargo of lies; insomuch that now, aboard ship, the sailors, when they hear a great lie, cry out fudge.
1712. W. Crouch, A Collection of Papers. In the year 1664 we were sentenced for banishment to Jamaica by Judges Hyde and Twisden, and our number was 55. We were put on board the ship Black Eagle; the master's name was Fudge, by some called Lying Fudge.
1766 Goldsmith, Vicar of Wakefield, ch. xi. Who . . . would cry out fudge! an expression which displeased us all, and, in some measure, damped the rising spirit of the conversation.
1841. Lytton, Night and Morning, Bk. II., ch. vii. Very genteel young man—prepossessing appearance—(that's a fudge!)—highly educated; usher in a school—eh?
1850. Thackeray, Rebecca and Rowena, ch. i. Her ladyship's proposition was what is called bosh . . . or fudge in plain Saxon.
1861. Cornhill Magazine, iv., 102. 'A Cumberland Mare's Nest.' . . . Up jumped the worthy magistrate, And seizing 'Burn,' Of justices the oracle and badge, he straight Descended to his 'lion's den' (a sobriquet in fudge meant) Where he, 'a second Daniel,' had often 'come to judgment.'
1864. Tangled Talk, p. 108. It is fudge to tell a child to 'love' every living creature—a tapeworm, for instance, such as is bottled up in chemists windows.
1865. Morning Star, 1 June. Old as I am and half woor out, I would lay (too bad, Mr. Henley, this) upon my back and hallo fudge!
1882. Daily Telegraph, 5 Oct., p. 2, col. 2. Much that we hear concerning the ways and means of the working classes is sheer fudge.
Verb. (colloquial).—1. To fabricate; to interpolate; to contrive without proper materials.
1776. Foote, The Bankrupt, iii., 2. That last 'suppose' is fudged in.
1836. Marryat, Midshipman Easy, ch. xviii. 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.
1858. Shirley Brooks, Gordian Knot. Robert Spencer was hiding from his creditors, or fudging medical certificates.
1859. G. A. Sala, in John Bull, 21 May. I had provided myself with a good library of books of Russian travel, and so fudged my Journey Due North.
2. (schoolboys')—To copy; to crib; to dodge or escape.
1877. Blanch, The Blue Coat Boys p. 97. Fudge, verb., trans. and intrans. To prompt a fellow in class, or prompt oneself in class artificially. Thence to tell; e.g., 'fudge me what the time is.'
3. (common).—To botch; to bungle; to muff (q.v.)
4. (schoolboys').—To advance the hand unfairly at marbles.
