Word.ws English Dictionary

cabbaging

cabbaging is the present participle and gerund of cabbage.

Noun

cabbaging (uncountable)

  1. (UK, slang) Being lazy or in a state of boredom.
  2. (slang) The stealing of offcuts of material by a tailor making a garment with a customer's fabric.
    • The tailor in the East [...] is made to cut out the cloth in presence of its owner, to prevent "cabbaging".1885, Richard F. Burton, chapter XXXI, in The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, volume I, The Burton Club, page 321 footnote

Meaning of cabbage

Verb (1)

cabbage (third-person singular simple present cabbages, present participle cabbaging, simple past and past participle cabbaged)

  1. (intransitive) To form a head like that of the cabbage.
    • to make lettuce cabbage
  2. (intransitive, slang) To do nothing; to idle; veg out.
    • How effective the project was is a moot point, because there were never any studies carried out to see whether children benefited from cabbaging in front of the TV rather than interacting with a teacher.2006, Steve Mckevitt, Why the World Is Full of Useless Things, page 38
  3. (slang, African-American Vernacular) To be killed or murdered, such as by being shot in the head.

Verb (2)

cabbage (third-person singular simple present cabbages, present participle cabbaging, simple past and past participle cabbaged)

  1. (transitive) To embezzle or purloin; to pilfer, to steal.
    • [Y]our Butler purloins your Liquor, and your Brevver ſells your Hogvvaſh; […] your Taylor, inſtead of Shreds, cabages vvhole Yards of Cloth; […]1733, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], Alexander Pope, compiler, “Law is a Bottomless Pit. Or, The History of John Bull. […]. [The First Part.] Chapter X. Of John Bull’s Second Wife...

See all 16 meanings of cabbage

Questions about cabbaging

What does cabbaging mean?
Cabbaging means being lazy or in a state of boredom.
What is cabbaging the present participle and gerund of?
Cabbaging is the present participle and gerund of cabbage.
What part of speech is cabbaging?
Cabbaging is a noun.

Words near cabbaging in the dictionary

  1. cabbageworm
  2. cabbageworms
  3. cabbagey
  4. cabbagier
  5. cabbagiest
  6. cabbaging
  7. cabbagy
  8. cabbala
  9. cabbalah
  10. cabbalas
  11. cabbalic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cabbaging (page history and authors); cabbage (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-cabbaging.ogg.

Cite this entry: “cabbaging.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cabbaging. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.