Other forms: badgers
A badger is a digging animal with a black and white striped face that lives underground. A badger sett, badgers at night, saw a badger.
Their home is a sett, which can be occupied by generations for over a century. They are nocturnal, powerfully built and very rarely seen alive. In Britain badgers are legally protected and simultaneously culled in some areas because of bovine tuberculosis, which is one of the country's longest-running conservation arguments. As a verb, to badger somebody is to pester them repeatedly, from the old sport of badger-baiting.
1nounbadgerA digging animal with a striped face that lives underground.
“A badger dug under the fence at night and tore up the lawn looking for worms.”
2verbpesterTo pester somebody repeatedly.
“She badgered the council for about eighteen months.”
badger is an animal, or a way of pestering.
The name probably comes from badge, for the white mark on the face — a badger is a marked animal. The older English name was brock, which survives in place names and in the surname Brock.
Middle English
bageard — marked by a badge
English, today
badger
Built from
From Middle English bageard (“marked by a badge”), from bage (“badge”), referring to the animal's badge-like white blaze, equivalent to badge + -ard. Displaced earlier brock, from brocc.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA