English Help Online's Blog

Today, I’d like to write about the verb “budge”. It’s almost always used in the negative, and we use it when we want to talk about a person or thing not moving from a certain position. Let me give you some example sentences using it.

I have to buy something in that store. Don’t budge from this spot! I don’t want you to get lost.

The traffic is so heavy right now. The cars in front of me haven’t budged in fifteen minutes.

I asked the salesman to give us a discount, but he wouldn’t budge from the original price.

I tried to persuade my husband to come to the party, but he won’t budge. He’s so stubborn!

As you can see from my examples, there are two ways of using this. We can use it to describe people or things that don’t move physically, as in my first two examples.

We can also use it to talk about people who don’t move away from a decision or opinion that they already have. In other words, they refuse to change their minds about something. My last two sentences are examples of this.

Please note that in my first sentence, the speaker is probably a parent speaking to a child. If you said, “Don’t budge from this spot!” to an adult, it’s extremely strong, and the other person would probably get angry.