budge

Alternative forms

• bouge, budg (both obsolete)

Verb

budge (third-person singular simple present budges, present participle budging, simple past and past participle budged)

1. (intransitive) To move; to be shifted from a fixed position.

   I’ve been pushing this rock as hard as I can, but it won’t budge an inch.

   • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 208, column 1:

     Ile not budge an inch boy: Let him come, and kindly.

   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, “Of the batell of Dreux”, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC, page 148:

     […] although his ſouldiers were much moved and offended to ſee their fellowes put to the worſt, he could not be induced to bouge from his place […]

   • 2014 March 9, Jacob Steinberg, “Wigan shock Manchester City in FA Cup again to reach semi-finals”, in The Guardian:

     Yet goals in either half from Jordi Gómez and James Perch inspired them and then, in the face of a relentless City onslaught, they simply would not budge, throwing heart, body and soul in the way of a ball which seemed destined for their net on several occasions.

   • 2023 March 13, Naureen Khan, “Doug Emhoff Wants Men to Clear the Path for More Kamalas”, in Cosmopolitan‎:

     The gender equality picture stateside can also seem bleak, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court gutting reproductive rights last summer. Women still make only 83 percent of what men do in the U.S.—a stat that has barely budged in the past 20 years.

2. (transitive) To move; to shift from a fixed position.

   I’ve been pushing this rock as hard as I can, but I can’t budge it.

3. To yield in one’s opinions or beliefs.

   The Minister for Finance refused to budge on the new economic rules.

   • 1933, Richard Curle, Corruption, page 75:

     If only I could get Ambrose to take me away somewhere! But he won't budge.

4. (Upper Midwestern US, Indiana, western Canada) To cut or butt (in line); to join the front or middle rather than the back of a queue.

   Hey, no budging! Don't budge in line!

5. To try to improve the spot of a decision on a sports field.

   (Can we add an example for this sense?)

Noun

budge (uncountable)

1. A kind of fur prepared from lambskin dressed with the wool on, formerly used as an edging and ornament, especially on scholastic habits.
   • 1649, John Milton, Observations:

     They are become so liberal, as to part freely with their own budge-gowns from off their backs.

   • 1787, An Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce, page 282:

     One hundred pieces of green silk for the Knights; fourteen budge furs for surcoats; thirteen hoods of budge for clerks, and seventy furs of lamb for liveries in summer.

Adjective

budge (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) austere or stiff, like scholastics
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC:

     Those budge doctors of the stoic fur.

   • 1784, John Wesley, The Magazine of the Wesleyan Methodist Church - Volume 7, page 393:

     The solemn fop; significant and budge; A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge, He says but little and that little said, 'Owes all its weight, like loaded dice, to lead.

   • 1931, The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, page 684:

     "My boy looked at me very budge," i.e., solemn.

Noun

budge (uncountable)

1. (slang, obsolete) Alcoholic drink.