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.Compare machine(def 3b).
a piece of anything of like shape: a wedge of pie.
a cuneiform character or stroke of this shape.
Meteorology. (formerly) an elongated area of relatively high pressure.
something that serves to part, split, divide, etc.: The quarrel drove a wedge into the party organization.
Military. (formerly) a tactical formation generally in the form of a V with the point toward the enemy.
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.
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
any formation, structure, or substance in the shape of a wedgea wedge of cheese
something such as an idea, action, etc, that tends to cause division
a shoe with a wedge heel
golfa club with a face angle of more than 50°, used for bunker shots (sand wedge) or pitch shots (pitching wedge)
a wedge-shaped extension of the high pressure area of an anticyclone, narrower than a ridge
mountaineeringa wedge-shaped device, formerly of wood, now usually of hollow steel, for hammering into a crack to provide an anchor point
any of the triangular characters used in cuneiform writing
(formerly) a body of troops formed in a V-shape
photoga 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
Britishslanga bribe
thin end of the wedgeanything unimportant in itself that implies the start of something much larger
verb
(tr)to secure with or as if with a wedge
to squeeze or be squeezed like a wedge into a narrow space
(tr)to force apart or divide with or as if with a wedge
Derived Formswedgelike, adjectivewedgy, adjective
Word Origin for wedge
Old English wecg; related to Old Saxon weggi, Old High German wecki, Old Norse veggr wall
mid-15c., from wedge (n.). Related: Wedged; wedging.
wedge
n.
Old English wecg "a wedge," from Proto-Germanic *wagjaz (cf. Old Norse veggr, Middle Dutch wegge, Dutch wig, Old High German weggi "wedge," German Weck "wedge-shaped bread roll"), of unknown origin. Wedge issue is attested from 1999.
