bodge

See also: 'Bodge

English

WOTD – 27 November 2015

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bɒdʒ/

• Audio (AU):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒdʒ

Etymology 1

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle English bocchen (“to mend, patch up, repair”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle Dutch botsen, butsen, boetsen (“to repair, patch”) (Dutch botsen (“to strike, beat, knock together”)), related to Old High German bōzan (“to beat”), See beat; or perhaps from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old English bōtettan (“to improve, repair”), (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old English bōtian (“to get better”). More at boot.

Verb

1. (British) To do a clumsy or inelegant job, usually as a temporary repair; mend, patch up, repair.
   • All the actions of his life are like so many things bodged in without any natural cadence or connexion at all. — (A book of characters, selected from the writings of Overbury, Earle, and Butler, Thomas Overbury and John Earle, 1865)
   • Some cars were neglected, others bodged to keep them running with inevitable consequences — (Original Porsche 356: The Restorer's Guide, Laurence Meredith, 2003)
   • Do not be satisfied with a bodged job, set yourself professional goals and standards — (The Restoration Handbook, Enric Roselló, 2007)
2. To work green wood using traditional country methods; to perform the craft of a bodger.
   • 1978, John Geraint Jenkins, Traditional Country Craftsmen, →ISBN, page 16:

     His father, grandfather and countless generations before him had obtained a living from chair bodging in the solitude of the beech glades.

   • 1989, John Birchard, "The artful bodger", American Woodworker, page 41, May-June.

     "Bodging is more a curiosity than a valid craft these days," says Don. "But experience in low-tech woodworking is also a good way for the beginner to start getting a feel for turning without having to make a huge investment in a modern lathe."

   • 2000, Beth Robinson Bosk, The New Settler Interviews: Boogie at the Brink, →ISBN.

     Which is no different than my chair bodging, in that I can go out into the woodland and do my work without having to be tied in to a village shop situation.

Synonyms

• (make a temporary repair): see Thesaurus:kludge

Translations

do a clumsy or inelegant job — see botch

Noun

bodge (plural bodges)

1. A clumsy or inelegant job, usually a temporary repair; a patch, a repair.
   • 2011 February 22, Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing‎^[1], retrieved 2012-02-05:

     The simple tool above provides a low-tech bodge to help people locate missing friends and family in Christchurch following today's terrible earthquake.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:workaround

Derived terms

• bodge job

Related terms

• bodger
• botch

Etymology 2

Unknown

Noun

bodge (plural bodges)

1. (historical) The water in which a smith would quench items heated in a forge.
2. (South East England) A four-wheeled handcart used for transporting goods. Also, a homemade go-cart.

Adjective

bodge (comparative more bodge, superlative most bodge)

1. (slang, Northern Ireland) Insane, off the rails.

Anagrams

• bedog, begod