verge
UK /vɜːd͡ʒ/ · US /vɝd͡ʒ/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms verges verging verged
- noun A rod or staff of office, e.g. of a verger.
- noun (UK, historical) The stick or wand with which persons were formerly admitted tenants, by holding it in the hand and swearing fealty to the lord. Such tenants were called tenants by the verge.
- noun An edge or border.
- noun (UK, Western Australia, New Zealand) The grassy area between the footpath and the street; a tree lawn; a grassed strip running alongside either side of an outback road.
- noun (figuratively) An extreme limit beyond which something specific will happen. “I was on the verge of tears.”
- noun (obsolete) The phallus.
- noun (zoology) The external male organ of certain mollusks, worms, etc.
- noun An old measure of land: a virgate or yardland.
- verb (intransitive) To be or come very close; to border; to approach. “Eating blowfish verges on insanity.”
- verb To bend or incline; to tend downward; to slope.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
berm besidewalk boulevard boulevard strip city easement common county strip curb lawn curb strip devil strip/devil's strip/devilstrip drivestrip/drive strip easement extension lawn furniture zone grass bay grassplot hellstrip island strip landscape zone long acre brink threshold scepter sceptre wand
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French verge (“rod or wand of office”), hence "scope, territory dominated", from Latin virga (“shoot, rod stick”), of unknown origin. Earliest attested sense in English is now-obsolete meaning "male member, penis" (c.1400). Modern sense is from the notion of 'within the verge' (1509, also as Anglo-Norman dedeinz la verge), i.e. "subject to the Lord High Steward's authority" (as symbolized by the rod of office), originally a 12-mile radius round the royal court, which sense shifted to "the outermost edge of an expanse or area." Doublet of virga.
Borrowed from Latin vergō (“to bend, turn, tend toward, incline”), from Proto-Indo-European *werg- (“to turn”), from a root *wer- (“to turn, bend”) (compare versus); strongly influenced by the above noun.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A rod or staff, carried as an emblem of authority; as, the verge, carried before a dean.
- noun The stick or wand with which persons were formerly admitted tenants, they holding it in the hand, and swearing fealty to the lord. Such tenants were called tenants by the verge. [Eng.]
- verb To border upon; to tend; to incline; to come near; to approach.
- verb To tend downward; to bend; to slope; as, a hill verges to the north.
Etymology [F. verge, L. virga; perhaps akin to E. wisp.]
Etymology [L. vergere to bend, turn, incline; cf. Skr. v to turn.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “verge”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details