Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to suit, to work out, to ‘do’.

1566		T.N. [trans.] Seneva Octauia n.p.: And syre of Gods yturnde, from skyes dyd glyde. / The swannes white wings, to se how they could fadge.
1570		T. Knell An answer at large to a Papisticall Byll n.p.: And if his traiterous idle bones, / will not so fadge to worke: / Let him go get into the field, / and sue to serue the Turke .
1588		J. Aske Elizabetha triumphans 10: But since that this [the Pope’s] purpose will not fadge, / H’il practise now, as haue the other done, / By priuate traytors to reuenge his foyle.
1594		Lyly Mother Bombie I i: Ile haue thy aduice, and if it fadge, thou shalt eate.
1599		Nashe Praise of the Red Herring 55: It would not fadge, for then the market was raised to three C.
1600		Look About You xi: Gloster hath plotted means for an escape, And if it fadge, why so; if not, then well.
1607		Middleton A Trick to Catch the Old One IV v: Hoyday! this geer will fadge well.
1616		W. Haughton English-Men For My Money B: Wilt fadge? What, will it be a match?
1627		R. Niccols The Beggars Ape n.p.: ‘To liue in Princes Courts doe seldome fadge’.
1633		T. Adams A commentary [...] vpon the diuine second epistle 1113: The Ideot could say of his crooked stickes, that would not fadge and worke to his minde; that they never grew but in the night.
1640		T. Heywood Love’s Mistress IV i: I keep a dozen Journeymen at least [...] yet ’twill not fadge.
1655		R. Davenport King John and Matilda n.p.: I wonder how my pair of Prisoners fadge?/ I am something dogged too a to’ther side, / That thus long have not seen them, nor have they eate.
1669		R. L’Estrange Fables of Aesop XLII 44: He saw it would not Fadge.
1678		S. Butler Hudibras Pt III canto 2 lines 255–6: But found their Light and Gifts more wide / From fadging than th’ unsanctify’d;.
1685		G. Bate The rise and progress of the late troubles in England 58: the Parliament settle the Presbyterian government onely for three years, that in that time they might have a tryal how it would fadge.
1696		C. Ness A compleat history [...] of the Old and New Testament 94: N. B. How these Couples could fadge, is hard to tell.
1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: It won’t fadge or doe.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 136: fadge, to suit or fit; ‘it won’t fadge,’ it will not do.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 27: Fadge, ‘it won’t fadge,’ it does not suit.
1923		Northern Whig 12 Sept. 8/6: My blowen kidded a bloke into a panel crib and shook him of his thimble to put up the coal, but it wouldn’t fadge and I got three stretches.