Meanings
bodge1
present singular third person bodges · participle present bodging · participle past bodged · past bodged
- IrelandUKTo do a clumsy or inelegant job, usually as a temporary repair; mend, patch up, repair.
We bodged again; as I have seen a swan
c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv], page 153, column 13 more examples
All the actions of his life are like so many things bodged in without any natural cadence or connexion at all.
1865, A book of characters, selected from the writings of Overbury, Earle, and Butler, Thomas Overbury and John EarleSome cars were neglected, others bodged to keep them running with inevitable consequences
2003, Laurence Meredith, Original Porsche 356: The Restorer's GuideDo not be satisfied with a bodged job, set yourself professional goals and standards
2007, Enric Roselló, The Restoration HandbookSynonyms: cludge, cobble together, jury-rig, kludge, kluge, knock together, knock up, MacGyver
- To work green wood using traditional country methods; to perform the craft of a bodger.
His father, grandfather and countless generations before him had obtained a living from chair bodging in the solitude of the beech glades.
1978, John Geraint Jenkins, Traditional Country Craftsmen, →ISBN, page 162 more examples
"Bodging is more a curiosity than a valid craft these days," says Don. "But experience in low-tech woodworking is also a good way for the beginner to start getting a feel for turning without having to make a huge investment in a modern lathe."
1989 May–June, John Birchard, “The artful bodger”, in American Woodworker, page 41Which is no different than my chair bodging, in that I can go out into the woodland and do my work without having to be tied in to a village shop situation.
2000, Beth Robinson Bosk, The New Settler Interviews: Boogie at the Brink, →ISBN
plural bodges
- A clumsy or inelegant job, usually a temporary repair; a patch, a repair.
The simple tool above provides a low-tech bodge to help people locate missing friends and family in Christchurch following today's terrible earthquake.
2011 February 22, Cory Doctorow, “Google App to help locate people in Christchurch quake”, in BoingBoing, retrieved 05 Feb 2012Synonyms: band-aid, band-aid solution, cludge, fiddle, hack, hack job, jugaad, kludge
bodge2
plural bodges
- EastEnglandSouthA four-wheeled handcart used for transporting goods. Also, a homemade go-cart.
comparative more bodge · superlative most bodge
- Northern IrelandslangInsane, off the rails.
Synonyms & antonyms
verbTo do a clumsy or inelegant job, usually as a temporary repair; mend, patch up, repair.
nounA clumsy or inelegant job, usually a temporary repair; a patch, a repair.
More synonyms by meaning
verbmake a mess of, destroy or ruin
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
bodge · verb, noun
- Danishbødker
- GermanBöttcher“cooper (profession)”
- Old Englishbōtian“to get better”
- Old Englishbōtettan“to improve, repair”
- Middle Dutchbotsen
- Middle Englishbocchen“to mend, patch up, repair”
- Englishbodge
Inherited from Middle English bocchen (“to mend, patch up, repair”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Middle Dutch botsen, butsen, boetsen (“to repair, patch”) (Dutch botsen (“to strike, beat, knock together”)), related to Old High German bōzan (“to beat”), See beat; or perhaps from Old English bōtettan (“to improve, repair”), Old English bōtian (“to get better”). Compare botch. More at boot. Perhaps from boggle. Perhaps from botch (“patch, or a measurement of capacity equivalent to half a peck”). There is a hypothesis that bodges, defined as rough sacks of corn, closely resembled packages of finished goods the bodgers carried when they left the forest or workshop. Another hypothesis (dating from 1879) is that bodger was a corruption of badger, as similarly to the behaviour of a badger, the bodger dwelt in the woods and seldom emerged until evenings. Other hypotheses include German Böttcher (“cooper (profession)”), a trade that uses similar tools), and similar Scandinavian words, such the Danish bødker. These words have similar origins to butt, as in water butt (“rain barrel”). Or possibly it may have been a derogatory term used by workers in furniture factories, referring to the men who worked in the woods that produced the “incomplete” chair parts. The factory workers would then take the output of that "bodged job" and turn it into a finished product. The Oxford English Dictionary Supplement of 1972 has two definitions for bodger. One is a local dialect word from Buckinghamshire, for a chair leg turner. The other is Australian slang for bad workmanship. The etymology of the bodger and botcher (poor workmanship) are well recorded from Shakespeare onwards, and now the two terms are synonymous.
More words from Middle English, Middle Dutch, Old English
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with bodge
All rhymes →Anagrams
Cite this entry
bodge. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bodge
“bodge.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bodge. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bodge,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bodge.
Source: bodge on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.