Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und.) a pimp.

1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: Badgers [...] Also a Match-maker, or Cock-Bawd.
1875		J.H. Warren Crying Shame of NY 45: Of the ‘badger’ who deliberately robs the poor creature of the wages of her sin, or who lives upon her bounty under the thin disguise of lover, or husband, [...] nothing need be said.

2. (UK Und.) a thief who specializes in robbery on the riverbank, after which he murders the victim and disposes of the corpse in the water.

1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: badgers a Crew of desperate Varlets, who rob and kill near any River, and then throw the dead Bodies therein. The Eighteenth Order of Villains.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 92: [He] compelled every mountybank, and elbow-shaker, frezier, bully-trap, and janizary, lolly-poop, sea-crab, caper merchant. Badger, Dandy-pratt, and Fidlam-ben [...] tu muster in his army.
1839		(con. 1715) W.H. Ainsworth Jack Sheppard (1917) 153: Mudlarks, badgers and rat-catchers.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open 97: Badgers, forestallers and murderers.
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 312/2: badger [...] voleurs qui opéraient le long de la Tamise et noyaient leurs victimes. Les progrès de la vapeur et de la civilisation ont heureusement détruit cette race homicide.

3. (US) an old man [? the ill-temper of the animal].

1788		J. O’Keeffe Farmer 51: This infernal old Badger to draw me into a Tavern Bill, and not a Guinea in my Pocket.
1848		D.O. Madden Revelations of Ireland 115: Come, cut your shtick, ye catankerous owld badger iv a jackanapes.
1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 24 July 14/1: Manning, of the Baltimores is the grayest badger In the business. He [...] has been playing [...] for the past fifty years.
1893		R.G. Hampton Major in Wash. City 56: The cursed old badger is drawin’ a pension too.
1944		P.I. Wellman Bowl 267: Knew an old, tough, ornery cowman [...] without an iota of education, culture, or cleanness — just an old plains badger [DARE].
1968, 1970		in DARE.

4. at a market a well-off individual who buys up (often at increased prices) and thus makes unavailable to less wealthy purchasers all the best goods on offer.

1825

Pierce Egan’s Life in London 8 May 115/3: There are a sort of itinerant monopolizers who infest this and most markets, and who, on account of the approximation of their, greedy, ravenous qualities to those of the Badger are universally distinguished by that opprobrious term.

5. (US) the nickname of the natives or inhabitants of Wisconsin, the Badger State [the early Wisconsin lead-miners (badgers) lived in subterranean diggings alongside the seams of lead they were mining; for detailed discussion see R.H. Thornton, An Amer. Glossary (1912) I pp.32–3].

1835		Amer. Qly Rev. Mar. 186: There was [...] a keen-eyed, leather-belted ‘badger’ from the mines of Ouisconsin .
1856		R.W. Emerson Eng. Traits 27: I found abundant points of resemblance between the Germans [...] and our ‘Hoosiers,’ ‘Suckers,’ and ‘Badgers,’ of the American woods.
1866		Keynotes of Amer. Liberty 166: Popular Names of States: Wisconsin The Badger State.
1871		Semi-Wkly Louisianan 31 Aug. 1/3: The Nicknames of the States [...] Rhode Island, gun flints; South Carolina, weasels; Tennessee, whelps; Texas, beefheads; Vermont, green mountain boys; Wisconsin, badgers.
1877		Daily Globe (St Paul, MN) 17 Jan. 1/7: Lively contest Among the Republicans of Badgerdom [...] The Nutmeggers in a similar Fix.
1885		North Amer. Rev. Nov. 433: Among the rank and file, both armies, it was very general to speak of the different States they came from by their slang names. Those from Maine were called Foxes; [...] Missouri, Pukes; Mississippi, Tad Poles; Florida, Fly up the Creeks; Wisconsin, Badgers; Iowa, Hawkeyes; Oregon, Hard Cases.
1893		W.S. Walsh Literary Curiosities 1039: Though Illinois does not specially abound in ‘suckers,’ and ‘badgers’ are rather scarce in Winconsin, the two commonwealths are still respectively known as ‘the Sucker State’ and ‘the Badger State’.
2012		Guardian On Line 11 Oct. 🌐 The multitude of data in the Badger State gives Obama a 2- 3-point advantage.

6. a thief who rifles the pockets of a man who is currently engaged with his accomplice, a prostitute.

1859		Matsell Vocabulum 9: Badger, A panel thief; a fellow who robs a man’s pocket after he has been enticed into bed with a woman. [Ibid.] 27: The badger got under the doss, and frisked the bloke’s pokes of two centuries and a half, and then bounced the flat till he mizzled.
1868		J.D. McCabe Secrets of the Great City 358: The Detectives’ Manual gives a glossary of this language, from which we take the following specimens [...] Badger. – A panel-thief.
1872		E. Crapsey Nether Side of NY 140: When the proper time arrived [. . .] the ‘badger’ stole into the room through the secret door [...] and having rifled the clothes of the stranger [...] crept back to his hiding-place and closed the panel behind him [...] This was the original panel game, but it has long been utterly obsolete.
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 5: Badger, a panel thief.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 128: The ‘badgers’ deal only with those men who are susceptible to the wiles of pretty women.
1931		(con. 1900s) C.W. Willemse Behind The Green Lights 76: I had no compunction against picking up ‘trimmers,’ ‘badgers,’ or ‘creepers’.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 21/1: Badger. One who specializes in the badger.

7. (US, also badge) a prostitute, esp. one who participates in a scheme to rob her clients.

1858		N.Y. Times 4 June 8: Jane Smith, who has several aliases, and Elizabeth McCarty, both noted female ‘badgers,’ were arrested yesterday by the Detective Police.
1914		Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Sl. 16: badger [...] Current amongst ‘hustlers’ and the demi-monde. A badger; a blackmailer, an extortioner. [Ibid.] 64: Amongst gamblers and badgers a ‘peter’ is a sleeping potion.
1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’ s Man 134: It might get us a piece of money for a sorta refined ‘badger’ – oh, nothing coarse, nothing rough, nothing not classy.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May: Her Story in Hamilton (1952) 129: Women, mostly with male assistants, are the badgers; and men are the victims. A man of money and social position is selected, or come upon accidentally, who cannot afford to call in the police. When he is in a compromising position, a witness appears; and nothing remains but to shake him down. Sometimes the man fights. He either takes his publicity-medicine or frightens the badger away. Both may happen.
1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 145: [It] houses more speakeasies, dope dens, toke joints, badger apartments.
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 158: mr badger: The man who pretends to be the outraged husband in the badger game. mrs badger: A woman blackmailer who plays the badger game.

8. (US Und.) a man who dresses as a woman in order to exploit other men for money.

1931–4

D. Clemmer Prison Community (1940) 330/1: badger, n. A man who dresses as a woman and exploits other men for money.

9. see badger game