Other forms: hedges, hedging, hedged
A hedge is a living wall of bushes dividing fields. Trim the hedge, a hawthorn hedge, over the hedge.
Old ones are habitat corridors, and a rough rule dates them by counting woody species in a thirty-yard stretch — one for each century. Britain lost hundreds of thousands of miles of them to larger fields. To hedge a bet is to protect against loss.
1nounhedgeA living wall of bushes dividing fields.
“The ball flew over the hedge into the neighbour's garden.”
2verbprotectTo protect yourself against loss.
“Many investors hedge against rising prices by putting some of their money into gold.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
hedge is a boundary, or a protection.
Old English hecg names an enclosure of bushes, from a Germanic root meaning an enclosure. Hedgehog is the hedge animal.
Proto-Indo-European
*kagʰyóm — enclosure
Proto-Germanic
*hagjō
Proto-West Germanic
*haggju
Old English
heċġ
Middle English
hegge
English, today
hedge
From Middle English hegge, from Old English heċġ, from Proto-West Germanic haggju, from Proto-Germanic hagjō, from Proto-Indo-European kagʰyóm (“enclosure”). Cognate with Dutch heg, German Hecke. a doublet of hey and quay. More at haw.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA