Dodger
nounA person who avoids a duty, payment, or responsibility, often by cunning or dishonest means.
How to spell dodger
6 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce dodger
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does dodger mean?
- nounA person who avoids a duty, payment, or responsibility, often by cunning or dishonest means.
Dodger in a sentence
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The auditor flagged him as a serial tax dodger who hid income offshore.
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As a fare dodger, she slipped through the barriers without paying.
Where does dodger come from?
Language of origin: Unknown
This word is built from the verb 'dodge' plus the agent suffix '-er', so it literally names a person who dodges. The verb 'dodge' appeared in English in the 1560s, first meaning to move quickly to and fro or to shift about to avoid something, but its deeper origin is genuinely obscure and no convincing ancestor has been traced in any older language. By the seventeenth century 'dodge' had also picked up the sense of using shifty tricks or evasions, which is why 'dodger' so often suggests a sly avoider, as in 'tax dodger' or 'draft dodger'. Charles Dickens fixed the cunning flavour of the word in the public mind with the Artful Dodger, the pickpocket in Oliver Twist. Because the spelling simply joins a familiar verb to a familiar suffix, the only real trap is the soft 'dge' spelling the 'j' sound.
How the word is built
- dodge (to evade, move aside quickly)
- -er (agent suffix: one who does)
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