wedge
Americannoun
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a piece of hard material with two principal faces meeting in a sharply acute angle, for raising, holding, or splitting objects by applying a pounding or driving force, as from a hammer.
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a piece of anything of like shape.
a wedge of pie.
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a cuneiform character or stroke of this shape.
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Meteorology. (formerly) an elongated area of relatively high pressure.
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something that serves to part, split, divide, etc..
The quarrel drove a wedge into the party organization.
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Military. (formerly) a tactical formation generally in the form of a V with the point toward the enemy.
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Golf. a club with an iron head the face of which is nearly horizontal, for lofting the ball, especially out of sand traps and high grass.
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Optics. optical wedge.
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Chiefly Coastal Connecticut and Rhode Island. a hero sandwich.
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a wedge heel or shoe with such a heel.
verb (used with object)
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to separate or split with or as if with a wedge (often followed by open, apart, etc.).
to wedge open a log.
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to insert or fix with a wedge.
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to pack or fix tightly.
to wedge clothes into a suitcase.
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to thrust, drive, fix, etc., like a wedge.
He wedged himself through the narrow opening.
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Ceramics. to pound (clay) in order to remove air bubbles.
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to fell or direct the fall of (a tree) by driving wedges into the cut made by the saw.
verb (used without object)
noun
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a block of solid material, esp wood or metal, that is shaped like a narrow V in cross section and can be pushed or driven between two objects or parts of an object in order to split or secure them
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any formation, structure, or substance in the shape of a wedge
a wedge of cheese
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something such as an idea, action, etc, that tends to cause division
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a shoe with a wedge heel
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golf a club with a face angle of more than 50°, used for bunker shots ( sand wedge ) or pitch shots ( pitching wedge )
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a wedge-shaped extension of the high pressure area of an anticyclone, narrower than a ridge
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mountaineering a wedge-shaped device, formerly of wood, now usually of hollow steel, for hammering into a crack to provide an anchor point
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any of the triangular characters used in cuneiform writing
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(formerly) a body of troops formed in a V-shape
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photog a strip of glass coated in such a way that it is clear at one end but becomes progressively more opaque towards the other end: used in making measurements of transmission density
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slang a bribe
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anything unimportant in itself that implies the start of something much larger
verb
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(tr) to secure with or as if with a wedge
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to squeeze or be squeezed like a wedge into a narrow space
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(tr) to force apart or divide with or as if with a wedge
Regionalisms
See hero sandwich.
Other Word Forms
- unwedge verb (used with object)
- wedgelike adjective
- wedgy adjective
Etymology
Origin of wedge
before 900; Middle English wegge (noun), Old English wecg; cognate with dialectal German Weck ( Old High German wecki ), Old Norse veggr
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
They also noted that “it was arranged on platters with a small wedge of lemon and some garnish.”
From Salon
Today it’s an Italianate apartment building wedged between an Indian restaurant and a Target.
From Los Angeles Times
After a few warmer days, on March 29 it turned so cold that around midnight an ice wedge stopped the constant crash of New York’s Niagara Falls.
From Literature
Sun Girl agreed, and while she went off in search of assistance, Duane continued staying wedged in the fishing hole, pondering how the day was turning out quite differently from how he had imagined.
From Literature
On Thursday, the share price broke out to the upside from a wedge consolidation pattern which it had been trading within since the start of January, the analyst notes.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
