Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to suit, to work out, to ‘do’.

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?
1640		T. Heywood Love’s Mistress IV i: I keep a dozen Journeymen at least [...] yet ’twill not fadge.
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;.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: It won’t fadge or doe.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
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.