Category:Badger

Badg"er, n. Etym: [Of uncertain origin; perh. fr. an old verb badge to lay up provisions to sell again.]

Defn: An itinerant licensed dealer in commodities used for food; a hawker; a huckster; -- formerly applied especially to one who bought grain in one place and sold it in another. [Now dialectic, Eng.]

Badg"er, n. Etym: [OE. bageard, prob. fr. badge + -ard, in reference to the white mark on its forehead. See Badge,n.]

1. A carnivorous quadruped of the genus Meles or of an allied genus. It is a burrowing animal, with short, thick legs, and long claws on the fore feet. One species (M. vulgaris), called also brock, inhabits the north of Europe and Asia; another species (Taxidea Americana or Labradorica) inhabits the northern parts of North America. See Teledu.

2. A brush made of badgers' hair, used by artists. Badger dog. (Zoöl.) See Dachshund.

Badg"er, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Badgered (p. pr. & vb. n. Badgering.] Etym: [For sense 1, see 2d Badger; for 2, see 1st Badger.]

1. To tease or annoy, as a badger when baited; to worry or irritate persistently.

2. To beat down; to cheapen; to barter; to bargain.

---excerpt from the Illustrated Bible Dictionary

Badger - This word is found in Exodus 25:5; Exodus 26:14; Exodus 35:7, Exodus 35:23; Exodus 36:19; Exodus 39:34; Numbers 4:6, etc. The tabernacle was covered with badgers' skins; the shoes of women were also made of them (Ezekiel 16:10). Our translators seem to have been misled by the similarity in sound of the Hebrew tachash and the Latin taxus, "a badger." The revisers have correctly substituted "seal skins." The Arabs of the Sinaitic peninsula apply the name tucash to the seals and dugongs which are common in the Red Sea, and the skins of which are largely used as leather and for sandals. Though the badger is common in Palestine, and might occur in the wilderness, its small hide would have been useless as a tent covering. The dugong, very plentiful in the shallow waters on the shores of the Red Sea, is a marine animal from 12 to 30 feet long, something between a whale and a seal, never leaving the water, but very easily caught. It grazes on seaweed, and is known by naturalists as Halicore tabernaculi.