Other forms: verges, verging
The verge is the very edge of something — or, on a British road, the strip of grass beside it.
The road sense is the everyday one in Britain, and pulling onto the verge is what you do when a car breaks down. It is also where wild flowers survive, which is why councils are now asked to cut them less. The figurative sense is far commoner in writing, since being on the verge of something means right at the point of it, usually tears, collapse or a discovery. The verb takes on.
To be on the verge is to be leaning. Latin vergō meant to bend or to incline towards something, from a root meaning to turn.
Latin
virga — shoot, rod stick
Middle French
verge — rod or wand of office
English, today
verge
Borrowed from Middle French verge (“rod or wand of office”), hence "scope, territory dominated", from Latin virga (“shoot, rod stick”), of unknown origin. Earliest attested sense in English is now-obsolete meaning "male member, penis" (c.1400). Modern sense is from the notion of 'within the verge' (1509, also as Anglo-Norman - dedeinz la verge), i.e. "subject to the Lord High Steward's authority" (as symbolized by the rod of office), originally a 12-mile radius round the royal court, which sense shifted to "the outermost edge of an expanse or area." a doublet of virga.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 14 of A Man Called Ove.
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