| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| wedge |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  w j |
| NOUN: | 1. A piece of material, such as metal or wood, thick at one edge and tapered to a thin edge at the other for insertion in a narrow crevice, used for splitting, tightening, securing, or levering. 2a. Something shaped like a wedge: a wedge of pie. b. Downstate New York See submarine (sense 2). See Regional Note at submarine. c. A wedge-shaped formation, as in ground warfare. 3a. Something that intrudes and causes division or disruption: His nomination drove a wedge into party unity. b. Something that forces an opening or a beginning: a wedge in the war on poverty. 4. Meteorology See ridge4). 5. Sports An iron golf club with a very slanted face, used to lift the ball, as from sand. 6. One of the triangular characters of cuneiform writing. | | VERB: | Inflected forms: wedged, wedg·ing, wedg·es
| | TRANSITIVE VERB: | 1. To split or force apart with or as if with a wedge. 2. To fix in place or tighten with a wedge. 3. To crowd or squeeze into a limited space. | | INTRANSITIVE VERB: | To become lodged or jammed. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English wegge, from Old English wecg.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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