fudge

English

Etymology

Probably a variant of fadge (“to fit”), the confectionery sense having evolved from the meaning of “merging together” or “turning out as expected”.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fʌd͡ʒ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌdʒ

Noun

fudge (countable and uncountable, plural fudges)

1. (chiefly uncountable) A type of very sweet candy or confection, usually made from sugar, butter, and milk or cream.

   Have you tried the vanilla fudge? It's delicious!

   1. (US) Chocolate fudge.
2. (uncountable) Light or frothy nonsense.
3. (countable) A deliberately misleading or vague answer.
4. (uncountable, dated) A made-up story.

   Synonyms: nonsense, humbug; see also Thesaurus:nonsense

5. (countable) A less than perfect decision or solution; an attempt to fix an incorrect solution after the fact.
6. (euphemistic, slang) Fecal matter; feces.

   Here comes the fudge!

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:feces

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

fudge (third-person singular simple present fudges, present participle fudging, simple past and past participle fudged)

1. (intransitive) To try to avoid giving a direct answer.

   Synonyms: waffle, equivocate, hedge

   When I asked them if they had been at the party, they fudged.

2. (transitive) To alter something from its true state, as to hide a flaw or uncertainty, deliberately but not necessarily dishonestly or immorally.

   The results of the experiment looked impressive, but it turned out the numbers had been fudged.

   I had to fudge the lighting to get the color to look good.

   Do you fudge your age?

3. (dated, transitive, intransitive) To botch or bungle something.
4. To cheat, especially in the game of marbles.

   Synonyms: cheat; see also Thesaurus:deceive

Derived terms

• fudger
• fudge wheel

Translations

Interjection

fudge

1. (colloquial, minced oath) Used in place of fuck.
   • 1866, George Eliot, Felix Holt:

     Fudge! if you had such a fine instinct, why did you let us go to Transome Court and make fools of ourselves?

2. (colloquial, archaic) Nonsense; tommyrot.
   • 1871, George Eliot, Middlemarch:

     Oh, fudge! Don't lecture me.

Translations

Further reading

• fudge on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.

Finnish

Etymology

From English fudge.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfudɡe/,
• Rhymes: -udɡe
• Syllabification^(key): fud‧ge

Noun

fudge

1. fudge (type of confection)

Declension

See also

• kinuski
• toffee

Further reading

• “fudge”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎ (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-02