Other forms: dodging, dodges, dodged
To dodge is to move quickly aside to avoid something. Dodge the ball, dodge out of the way, dodging traffic.
It is a physical sidestep, and the figurative sense follows straight from it: dodge a question, dodge responsibility, tax dodging. A dodge is also a clever trick or a way round a rule — a tax dodge, an old dodge. Note dodgeball, the playground game, and dodgy, which is British for unreliable, unsafe or slightly dishonest, and is one of the most used adjectives in the country.
1verbdodgeTo move quickly aside to avoid something.
“He dodged sideways and it went past his ear.”
2verbfaceTo avoid something you should face.
“She dodged the question three times in one interview.”
3nouncleverA clever trick or way round a rule.
“It is an old dodge and the rules were rewritten to stop it.”
dodge is an avoiding movement.
The origin is obscure — dodge appears in the sixteenth century with no clear ancestor. Its relatives are all guesses, which is unusual for so ordinary a word.
Proto-Germanic
*dud- — to move
Middle English
*dodden
English, today
dodge
Built from
Likely from dialectal dodge, dod, dodd (“to jog, trudge along, totter", also "to jerk, jig”), of unknown origin. Perhaps from unrecorded Middle English dodden, ultimately from Proto-Germanic dud- (“to move”), related to Old English dydrian, dyderian (“to delude, deceive”), Middle English dideren (“to tremble, quake, shiver”), English dodder, Norwegian dudra (“to tremble”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA