Hedging

You can fudge. 

You can waffle. 

But if you're really low-life, you hedge.

The verb hedge, meaning to "screen yourself from a bad choice," comes from the Old English noun haga, meaning "fence."

The Brits stole haga from the German word Hegga. The Germans stole Hegga from the Latin word caulae, meaning "sheepfold."

In Merry Old England, hedge came to mean "shelter," because the homeless—highwaymen, knights and vagabonds—would sleep under hedges.

By the 16th century, hedge was used as a verb meaning to "dodge" or "evade." By the 17th century, it began being used to mean to "bet against loss."

Money-lenders in the time would make an unsecured loan to a borrower only were he willing to roll it into an outstanding loan that was secured.

The lending practice was known as hedging.

Of course, gentlemen never hedged.

That may have prompted Samuel Johnson, in his 1755 Dictionary, to say hedge "notes something mean, vile, of the lowest class."

Johnson didn't beat around the bush.