Meaning

noun an elaborate or deceitful scheme contrived to deceive or evade

noun a quick evasive movement

noun a statement that evades the question by cleverness or trickery

originLikely from dialectal dodge, dod, dodd (“to jog, trudge along, totter", also "to jerk, jig”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from unrecorded Middle English *dodden, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *dud- (“to move”), related to Old English dydrian, dyderian (“to delude, deceive”), Middle English dideren (“to tremble, quake, shiver”), English dodder, Norwegian dudra (“to tremble”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0