Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also cad) a beggar.

1785		Burns Epistle to J. Lapraik (1) in Works (1842) 32/1: Then up I gat, an’ swoor an aith, Tho’ I should pawn my pleugh and graith, Or die a cadger pownies’ death, At some dyke-back.
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1821		W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry II v: Let’s have a dive among the Cadgers in the Back Slums, in the Holy Land.
1822		‘The Sprees of Tom, Jerry & Logick’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 124: Then to the Holy Land they went disguis’d from top to toe, / To see the Beggar’s Opera where all the Cadgers go.
1828		G. Smeeton Doings in London 8: I can take you to St. Giles’s, and introduce you to the beggars, or Cadgers.
1833		‘Life In London’ Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 12: Then for harmony resort – / Get lushy among the cadgers.
1835		Duncombe Dens of London 16: The headquarters of the cadgers — St. Giles’s.
1844		New Sprees of London 3: I’ll introduce you to [...] the Lushing, Chanting, and Night-cribs [...] where you may ddoss lush, or feed, from the slap club houses of St. James' to the shysiest of the Cadgers’ Kens in the back slums.
1852		‘The Cadger’s Ball’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 147: Oh, what a spicy flare-up, tear-up, / Festival Terpsichory, / Was guv’d by the genteel cadgers / In the famous Rookery.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 21 Aug. 3/2: He was a sturdy beggar, and had frequently been convicted of vagrancy nt tho Police Court; he was one of the very worst sort of cadgers.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 5: Others [...] had their dreams abruptly cut in two by some dozen cadgers from the nearest low lodging house.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 16: CAD, or cadger (from which it is shortened) a mean fellow; a man trying to worm something out of another, either money or information.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 396/1: The English cadgers were jealous of the Irish.
1866		J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 219: The ‘cadger’ [...] is the whining beggar – the cowardly imposter [...] a sneaking, abject wretch.
1878		C. Hindley Life and Times of James Catnach 383: The filthy money he used to take from the cadgers and hawkers.
1885		M. Davitt Leaves from a Prison Diary I 15: I punched him not so much for stealing my bread as for stealing into my cell like a ‘cadger’ when I was not there.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 88: The people at the Royal Cadgers Hotel were gents to those ’ere cripples, but then cripples is always foul-mouthed.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 14: Cadger, a beggar.
1900		Marvel XIII:322 Jan. 7: I’m not a cadger, but one of her Majesty’s officers of police!
1910		H.G. Wells Hist. of Mr Polly (1946) 201: Old cadger! She hadn’t no business to drag me into her quarrels.
1911		L. Stone Jonah 218: The boxer cried out, ‘No one to leave for five minutes,’ following the custom when a big winner left the room to prevent a swarm of cadgers, lug-biters, and spielers begging a tram fare, a bed, a cup of coffee from the winner.
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 183: To stand, cup in hand, at a London coffee stall at midnight [...] between a Cockney cadger and an opera-hatted baronet.
1968		J. Alard He Who Shoots Last 79: Throwing over a cigarette, the Wrecker remarked: ‘Here y’are, y’old cadger’.

2. (UK Und.) a shoplifter-cum-beggar; also used for the lowest rank of pickpocket.

1842		Western Times 20 Aug. 3/3: Cadger’s haunts should be routed up [...] no alliance should be suffered between the keepers of ‘flash houses’ and the policemen.
1865		T. Archer Pauper, Thief and Convict 25: [They] are thieves. Not young cadgers, like him who was lately from the workhouse, but regular thieves of the ordinary stamp.
1885		M. Davitt Leaves from a Prison Diary I 121: Thief-Cadgers — This, the pariah order of habitual criminal, is designated ‘the cadger’ from uniting two callings in his mode of thieving — begging (cadging) and ‘shop-lifting.’.

3. a genteel ‘sponger’.

1861		H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor IV 300/2: Heaps of food were [...] thrown on a side-table, or into a corner, as unfit to be eaten by those ‘professional’ cadgers.
1863		Story of a Lancashire Thief 6: Those premises were pretty well known by the cadgers.
1898		Binstead & Wells A Pink ’Un and a Pelican 269: The middle-aged obese cadger [...] now advertises his wife’s bedriddenness for a living.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 23 Oct. 1/4: He was immediately surrounded by a lot of [betting] shop cadgers and [betting] shop tip slingers.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 120: A perfect little Klondyke to cadgers, and a sort of registry office for actors out-of-collar.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1953		P. Larkin letter 4 Jan. in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 192: He puts you in an awkward position of either paying your share or feeling a cadger.

4. anyone in a service industry, e.g. a waiter, cab-driver, who solicits for tips.

1889–90

Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.

5. (Irish) a hawker, esp. one who sells poteen or illicit whisky.

1978

J. McGuffin In Praise of Poteen 17: In Derry around 1800 the cadgers were so confident that the poitín was brought to town [...] in open tubs on donkeys.