'badger' (verb) originates from English, specifically from the noun 'badger' (historically used for a dealer or hawker and also the animal name), where 'bag' or 'bagger' referred to someone handling bags or bales.

'badger' changed from an early northern English term such as 'bagger' (a dealer or pack-man) and through 16th–18th century English usages developed into the modern noun 'badger' and later the verb sense 'to pester or harass'.

Initially associated with dealers/handlers of bags or with the animal name, the usage broadened and by the 18th century the verb came to mean 'to pester or nag persistently', the meaning used today.