artful dodger
artful dodger noun: a crafty person who commits minor crimes or behaves in a rather unscrupulous manner.
Noun (1)
artful dodger (plural artful dodgers)
- A crafty person who commits minor crimes or behaves in a rather unscrupulous manner.
- Meg made many moral rules, and tried to keep them, but what mother was ever proof against the winning wiles, the ingenious evasions, or the tranquil audacity of the miniature men and women who so early show themselves accomplished Artful Dodgers?1868, Louisa May Alcott, chapter 45, in Little Women
- Timothy Mack has spent 13 years spiriting wallets from the pockets and purses of Los Angelenos, an artful dodger's career that has been interrupted by 20 arrests and two jail terms.1971 October 4, “The Nation: Crime and Punishment...”, in Time, retrieved 25 Feb 2014
- Synonyms:
- rapscallion, slyboots, trickster
- One who deftly evades obstacles, pursuers, inconveniences, or other difficulties.
- I was a pussyfoot, an artful dodger, sidestepping abandoned children, waifs and strays, foundlings, castaways, and junk-people.2003, Michael O'Brien, A Cry of Stone, →ISBN, page 742
- I could see the traps and landmines ahead and avoid them, a real artful dodger.2005, Jim Cherry, The Last Stage, →ISBN, page 81
Noun (2) capitalized: Artful Dodger
Artful Dodger (plural Artful Dodgers)
- Alternative form of artful dodger.
Examples of artful dodger in a sentence
- Perfect little con man and artful dodger, always on the make for some angle or another.2011, P. T. Deutermann, The Edge of Honor, →ISBN, page 183:
- For the second time in two weeks, Oliver, a 9-year-old capuchin monkey at a Mississippi zoo, escaped his cage, and this time, his keepers said he proved to be an even more artful dodger.2007 August 15, Brenda Goodman, “Will No Cage Hold Him? Monkey Again Escapes Zoo”, in New York Times, retrieved 25 Feb 2014:
Synonyms of artful dodger
Forms of artful dodger
| plural | artful dodgers |
|---|---|
| alternative form | Artful Dodger |
| plural | Artful Dodgers |
Origin of artful dodger
From the nickname of a skillful young pickpocket and rascal in Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens.
Questions about artful dodger
- What does artful dodger mean?
- Artful dodger means a crafty person who commits minor crimes or behaves in a rather unscrupulous manner.
- How do you use artful dodger in a sentence?
- Perfect little con man and artful dodger, always on the make for some angle or another.
- What part of speech is artful dodger?
- Artful dodger is a noun.
- What is the plural of artful dodger?
- The plural of artful dodger is artful dodgers.
Words near artful dodger in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: artful dodger (page history and authors); Artful Dodger (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-artful dodger.ogg.
Cite this entry: “artful dodger.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/artful_dodger. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.