wedge

American  

[wej] / wɛdʒ /

noun

• wedges
  plural

1. 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.

2. a piece of anything of like shape.

   a wedge of pie.

3. a cuneiform character or stroke of this shape.

4. Meteorology. (formerly) an elongated area of relatively high pressure.

5. something that serves to part, split, divide, etc..

   The quarrel drove a wedge into the party organization.

6. Military. (formerly) a tactical formation generally in the form of a V with the point toward the enemy.

7. 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.

8. Optics. optical wedge.

9. haček.

10. Chiefly Coastal Connecticut and Rhode Island. a hero sandwich.

11. a wedge heel or shoe with such a heel.

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verb (used with object)

• wedges,
  present (3rd person singular)
• wedged,
  past participle,  past
• wedging
  present participle

1. to separate or split with or as if with a wedge (often followed by open, apart, etc.).

   to wedge open a log.

2. to insert or fix with a wedge.

3. to pack or fix tightly.

   to wedge clothes into a suitcase.

   Synonyms:

   squeeze, crowd, stuff, jam, cram

4. to thrust, drive, fix, etc., like a wedge.

   He wedged himself through the narrow opening.

5. Ceramics. to pound (clay) in order to remove air bubbles.

6. to fell or direct the fall of (a tree) by driving wedges into the cut made by the saw.

verb (used without object)

• wedges,
  present (3rd person singular)
• wedged,
  past participle,  past
• wedging
  present participle

1. to force a way like a wedge (usually followed by in, into, through, etc.).

   The box won't wedge into such a narrow space.

wedge British  

/ wɛdʒ /

noun

1. 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

2. any formation, structure, or substance in the shape of a wedge

   a wedge of cheese

3. something such as an idea, action, etc, that tends to cause division

4. a shoe with a wedge heel

5. golf a club with a face angle of more than 50°, used for bunker shots ( sand wedge ) or pitch shots ( pitching wedge )

6. a wedge-shaped extension of the high pressure area of an anticyclone, narrower than a ridge

7. mountaineering a wedge-shaped device, formerly of wood, now usually of hollow steel, for hammering into a crack to provide an anchor point

8. any of the triangular characters used in cuneiform writing

9. (formerly) a body of troops formed in a V-shape

10. 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

11. slang a bribe

12. anything unimportant in itself that implies the start of something much larger

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verb

1. (tr) to secure with or as if with a wedge

2. to squeeze or be squeezed like a wedge into a narrow space

3. (tr) to force apart or divide with or as if with a wedge

wedge Idioms  

1. see thin edge of the wedge.

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Regionalisms

See hero sandwich.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• unwedge
  verb (used with object)
• wedgelike
  adjective
• wedgy
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• wedges
  plural

Participles

• wedging
  present
• wedged
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• wedge
  simple
• wedges
  simple
• have wedged
  perfect
• has wedged
  perfect
• am wedging
  progressive
• are wedging
  progressive
• is wedging
  progressive
• have been wedging
  perfect progressive
• has been wedging
  perfect progressive

Past

• wedged
  simple
• had wedged
  perfect
• was wedging
  progressive
• were wedging
  progressive
• had been wedging
  perfect progressive

Future

• will wedge
  simple
• will have wedged
  perfect
• will be wedging
  progressive
• will have been wedging
  perfect progressive

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

Explanation

A wedge is a block of wood that keeps a door propped open, or a problem that pulls people apart, like the jealousy that drove a wedge between two friends. Wedge means "triangle-shaped." Pieces of pie are wedges. So are tortilla chips. In some parts of the country, a sandwich on a long roll is called a wedge, or a wedgie, while in other places, it's a hoagie or sub. As a verb, wedge means to squeeze something into a tight space, like the way you might wedge your history textbook into your already stuffed backpack.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

wedge wedges wedged wedging

But now it’s used to drive a wedge between groups of people, which is unfortunate.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026

Walking out to the pitch, Messi leads, De Paul at his side, the rest of the squad fanning out behind almost in a wedge - like a street gang protecting its leader.

From BBC ● Jul. 15, 2026

Where one sees an opportunity to hit a lob wedge, another will hit a bump-and-run.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026

“Many were already skeptical of the wedge paper’s reliance on CCS,” he said.

From Salon ● Jun. 26, 2026

“Aye, the wedge slipped, when we were splitting a block of granite twenty years ago,” said the old one with a sidewise grin.

From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

I’ll cut up a few wedges of lemon and squeeze them on top of my soup — even saving a few extra wedges to squeeze in between spoonfuls.

From Salon ● Jun. 13, 2026

Zooming through the air in a flying Sky-Sled, he wedges his face into a triple chin.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026

"I haven't panicked when I've hit it off line and into trees, I've layed up and relied on wedges and those scoring clubs," he told Sky Sports.

From BBC ● Apr. 10, 2026

She wedges garbage cans into corners to prevent flipping, and warns her guests not to leave their coats within Stella’s reach.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 3, 2026

Celia wedges her blue lunch bag in the refrigerator and closes the door.

From "The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman" by Gennifer Choldenko

The excessive fines clause is the neglected middle child of the Eighth Amendment, wedged between excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment, and almost never litigated.

From Slate ● Jul. 28, 2026

Lacking space, some pitches have popped up inside warehouse buildings like one in Brooklyn, wedged between a trash-strewn highway and a pawnbroker.

From Barron's ● Jul. 9, 2026

Besides filler injections, there’s also tape designed to create a similar effect when wedged behind the ears.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026

One infant was sleeping on its side wedged between two rolls of fabric with another behind its head - this is "how one parent did it", said Clegg.

From BBC ● May 5, 2026

“We are all dying to know how you became wedged in the fishing hole!”

From "The Very, Very Far North" by Dan Bar-el

So, they used their single off day on a three-city East Coast trip to make a pit stop in Washington, wedging the visit between games against the Phillies and Mets.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026

Artificial intelligence boosters spent the year wedging the tech into our lives – whether we wanted it or not.

From Slate ● Jan. 2, 2026

Owens and her family saved the house, wedging plywood underneath the doorways during the storm and mopping up water faster than it seeped inside.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 17, 2025

England kept them to just the one score, with Cokayne wedging herself under Eva Karpani to deny the Australia prop a try during Australia's early period of ascendancy.

From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2025

Mav shoves his nose under Nate’s arm, wedging himself between us.

From "Red Flags and Butterflies" by Sheryl Azzam

Related Words

• chunk