Fudge Was Named for a Mistake
Fudge is a soft sweet made from sugar and butter. The name likely comes from an older verb meaning to botch or fake something.
Fudge is a soft sweet made by boiling sugar, butter and milk. The verb came first: to *fudge* meant to botch or contrive something dishonestly, and the sweet is thought to be named after a batch of botched caramel made in an American women's college in the 1880s. A cooking failure produced a confection. The verb survives fully: to fudge a figure is to massage it, and to fudge an issue is to avoid deciding.
- A soft sweet. *Vanilla fudge.*
- To avoid deciding. *Fudge the issue.*
- To falsify. *Fudge the numbers.*
- A fudge — an unsatisfactory compromise. *A political fudge.*
- Fudged — botched or faked. *A fudged result.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | fudge | A box of fudge. |
| Verb | fudge | Fudge it. |
| Past | fudged | They fudged it. |
| Noun | fudge | A messy fudge. |
| Interjection | fudge | Oh, fudge. |
- The shop sells clotted cream fudge.Sweet.
- Ministers fudged the question.Avoidance.
- The deal was an obvious fudge.Compromise.
Sweets by sugar temperature
- Fudge — soft ball stage, around 115 degrees Celsius
- Caramel — cooked slightly higher, chewier
- Toffee — hard crack stage, around 150 degrees
- Fondant — soft ball, then beaten while cooling
- The texture difference is temperature and beating, not ingredients
The verb is recorded from the 1600s meaning to botch or contrive. The confection sense is American, from the 1890s.
Why is the sweet called fudge?
Most likely after a botched batch of caramel in an American college in the 1880s, using an existing verb meaning to bungle.
What is a political fudge?
A compromise that avoids resolving the real disagreement, papering over it with vague wording.