the.com/dodger
Someone so committed to avoiding something they've made evasion a personality.
means A person who skillfully sidesteps work, responsibility, danger, or anything else they'd rather not face head-on.
from Straightforward agent noun from the verb 'dodge' — to move quickly aside to avoid a blow or obstacle. 'Dodge' itself appeared in English around the 1500s; its deeper roots are murky and etymologists openly shrug at them, though it may be linked to old dialect words for shifty or quick movement. The 'artful dodger' sense — a charming, practiced evader — got a huge cultural boost from Dickens' 'Oliver Twist,' whose pickpocket character of that name cemented 'dodger' as shorthand for someone who treats avoidance as a craft.
- origin era
- 1590s English, originally meant a cheating trickster
- artful dodger
- Dickens made the name synonymous with charming pickpockets
- la dodgers
- named after fans dodging trolley cars, not criminals
- draft dodger
- vietnam era term still used as political insult