# What does "spadging" mean?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-spadging-mean/649607
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 7, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-spadging-mean/649607 "2013-02-07T17:52:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-spadging-mean/649607/1 "2013-02-07T17:52:34Z")
Last night I was watching an episode of _Lark Rise to Candleford_, a period drama in the English countryside in Oxfordshire. Some people are caught poaching on the squire’s land and are being booted off by the gamekeeper. One of them wants to challenge the gamekeeper, but an old man says, “Spadging is good enough for poor people,” and they leave.
So what is “spadging”? Of course the Urban Dictionary has various seamy modern definitions, but these have nothing to do with the context of the episode.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2013, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-spadging-mean/649607/2 "2013-02-07T18:20:03Z")
“Spadger” is a dialectal name for a sparrow, so perhaps related to behaving like a sparrow? OED has “spadger” as a verb, too, but it seems dubious about it.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-spadging-mean/649607/3 "2013-02-07T18:24:37Z")
Or maybe “Spadging” would then mean “catching spadgers”. Meaning that they shouldn’t poach big game (or whatever game they were poaching,) but stick to spadger.
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### Author:  [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2013, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-spadging-mean/649607/4 "2013-02-07T19:06:34Z")
Okay! They were throwing a net over a hedge, to trap the little birds inside, or maybe to try to catch larger birds like pheasant or something? Maybe the old man was saying, "Okay, we won’t go after the larger birds, but surely you wouldn’t begrudge us a few _sparrows_, would you?
Thank you!
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### Author:  [@PlanetCharlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlanetCharlie)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2013, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-spadging-mean/649607/5 "2013-02-09T07:09:48Z")
I don’t know about how it works in Oxfordshire, but where I am (California), any time I hear it, its from pan-handlers. I believe its a portmanteau for ‘spare changing’ - alas, spanging. Trying to hustle for a few coins.
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### Author:  [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2013, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-spadging-mean/649607/6 "2013-02-09T18:40:39Z")
> [@PlanetCharlie](#):
>
> I don’t know about how it works in Oxfordshire, but where I am (California), any time I hear it, its from pan-handlers. I believe its a portmanteau for ‘spare changing’ - alas, spanging. Trying to hustle for a few coins.
Unlikely, in the middle of the countryside on the squire’s estate…
Harass a passing fox for a few bob maybe? 😃
Catchin’ spadgers sounds like it, not that it’s a common practice nowadays.
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### Author:  [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-spadging-mean/649607/7 "2013-02-09T22:11:44Z")
Spadgers?! We don’t need no steenking spadgers!
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### Author:  [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2013, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-spadging-mean/649607/8 "2013-02-09T22:47:35Z")
Now, don’t you start. 😛