dodger
Americannoun
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dodgers
plural
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a person who dodges.
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a shifty person, especially one who persistently evades a responsibility, as specified.
tax dodger; draft dodger.
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a leafhopper.
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a small handbill; throwaway.
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Chiefly South Midland and Southern U.S. corn dodger.
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Nautical. a shield, as of canvas, erected on a flying bridge to protect persons on watch from wind, flying spray, etc.
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Australian. a large slice, lump, or portion of food, especially of bread.
noun
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a person who evades or shirks
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a shifty dishonest person
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a canvas shelter, mounted on a ship's bridge or over the companionway of a sailing yacht to protect the helmsman from bad weather
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archaic a handbill
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informal food, esp bread
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dodger
Explanation
A dodger is a rascally, sneaky person who lies and tricks their way out of responsibilities or obligations. A tax dodger, for example, schemes to avoid paying taxes. There are many kinds of dodgers — from fare dodgers who jump the subway turnstile rather than pay the fare, to draft dodgers who snuck to Canada during the Vietnam War, to avoid being drafted by the Army. The most famous dodger is probably the character in Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist" known as The Artful Dodger, a skilled and savvy pickpocket. In the eighteenth century, it was common to use the word dodge to mean "swindle" or "play shifting tricks."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“We dodger fans my boi lol,” Sharky responded.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2021
The sense of compromise in some of his orchestral recordings can be hard to shake off; one Times critic called him “the most artful dodger of major issues now before the public.”
From New York Times ● Jan. 21, 2021
"There's a lot of people who just think I was a tax dodger and that's not the case," says John.
From BBC ● Oct. 25, 2020
Moreover, as Risen documents, it established this son of a wealthy Civil War draft dodger as the embodiment of America’s emergence as a world power.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 18, 2019
But that dodger, as soon as he had caught the woman’s eye and nodded, slipped away to join the ship.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
Social media was replete with jokes and memes about fleeing influencers, tax dodgers and crypto bros.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026
The mass demonstration follows a recent crackdown on ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers, with thousands of call-up notices ignored in recent months and several deserters imprisoned.
From Barron's ● Oct. 30, 2025
Labour is pledging to fund policies on the NHS and school breakfast clubs by boosting efforts to tackle tax dodgers.
From BBC ● Apr. 8, 2024
As ProPublica has reported, Yass is also one of the country’s most decorated tax dodgers, exceptionally evasive even compared with other Wall Street billionaires.
From Slate ● Mar. 27, 2024
On the way he gets sidetracked into Canada and becomes involved with a bunch of draft dodgers; at the end he goes back to his wife and they renew their vows in a hippie ceremony.
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
