pudge

English

This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “Perhaps a back-formation from pudgy, or an alteration of podge, and/or sound-symbolic.”

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pʌd͡ʒ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌdʒ

Noun

pudge (countable and uncountable, plural pudges)

1. Something short and fat.
2. Excess body fat.
   • 2002, extract from Christine Lincoln, Sap Rising, in Marita Golden, E. Lynn Harris (editors), Gumbo: An Anthology of African American Writing, Random House (Broadway Books), page 676,

     The smell of her skin and hair after I have given her a bath, me nibbling at the layers of pudge on her legs and arms, around her neck—I drown in the scent of all that innocence.

   • 2008, Deb Caletti, The Fortunes of Indigo Skye‎, Simon & Schuster (Simon Pulse), page 41:

     Their faces are long and graceful and missing the pudge of the others.

   • 2015, Larry Kramer, The American People: Volume 1: Search for My Heart, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, page 151:

     He is high-booted (over rather skinny legs), with a tiny bit of a paunch showing, an intimation of genital endowment, and a sort of nice half smile (a tidge of pudge in the cheeks and jowls), his left hand leaning against and rather caressing a very bold phallic cannon's spout.

Usage notes

• Sometimes used (capitalised) as a mildly derogatory nickname.
• Occasionally used as a nonsense word in light poetry.

Related terms

• pudgy

See also

• podge