Other forms: wedges, wedged, wedging
A wedge is a block that is thick at one end and thin at the other, so it bites in wherever you drive it. A wooden one kicked under a door to hold it open; a steel one hammered into the end of a log until the log splits along the grain.
Anything with that shape borrows the name: a wedge of cheese, a wedge of lemon on the side of the plate, potato wedges, a wedge of sky between two buildings. It is a verb as well — wedge the window open, get wedged between two strangers on the bus — and once wedged, a thing barely moves. Shoes have wedge heels, a solid sloping sole. And a wedge can be driven between two people, which means someone has set them against each other.
1nounwedgeA block that tapers to a thin edge, driven in to split something or to hold it in place.
“He tapped a wedge under the door so it would stay open.”
2nounthickA thick triangular piece cut from something.
“She cut a wedge of lemon for each glass.”
3verbforceTo force something into a narrow space, or hold it there.
“The parcel had been wedged behind the radiator.”
Wedge is old and has hardly moved: Old English weċġ, Proto-Germanic wagjaz, back to the Proto-Indo-European root weǵʰ-. An Anglo-Saxon carpenter would recognise the object and the word for it.
Proto-Indo-European
*weǵʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*wagjaz
Proto-West Germanic
*wagi
Old English
weċġ — wedge
Middle English
wegge — wedge
English, today
wedge
From Middle English wegge (“wedge”), from Old English weċġ (“wedge”), from Proto-West Germanic wagi, from Proto-Germanic wagjaz.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Tools & DIY
First appears in chapter 24 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word