fudgel - (obs.) v., to pretend to work while not actually doing anything productive.
Supposedly. This shows up on lists of old weird words, especially ones offering them up for revival, described as 18th century slang, but I'm having trouble confirming this. One such list claimed to have confirmed the existence of each of its entries as present in at least one dictionary, so I'm running this on the grounds that (if real) it is pretty good, but put an asterisk on it. I'm guessing the etymology has something to do with fudging things.
---L.
Supposedly. This shows up on lists of old weird words, especially ones offering them up for revival, described as 18th century slang, but I'm having trouble confirming this. One such list claimed to have confirmed the existence of each of its entries as present in at least one dictionary, so I'm running this on the grounds that (if real) it is pretty good, but put an asterisk on it. I'm guessing the etymology has something to do with fudging things.
---L.