wedge

/wɛdʒ / (say wej)

noun
1. a device (one of the so-called simple machines) consisting of a piece of hard material with two principal faces meeting in a sharply acute angle.
2. a piece of anything of this shape: a wedge of pie; a cheese wedge.
3. Also, potato wedge. a thick wedge of potato, seasoned and fried.
4. a shoe with a wedge heel.
5. Meteorology a region of relatively high pressure, extending from an anticyclone, with isobars in the shape of a wedge.
6. a cuneiform character or stroke.
7. something that serves to part, divide, etc.: a disrupting wedge divided the loyalties of party members.
8. Surfing a break on a shallow rock platform.
9. Colloquial a drink bought between shouts; tweeny.
10. Military History a tactical formation generally in the form of a V with the point towards the enemy.
11. → sand wedge.
–verb (wedged, wedging)
–verb (t)
12. to cleave or split with or as with a wedge.
13. to pack or fix tightly by driving in a wedge or wedges.
14. to thrust, drive, or fix (in, between, etc.) like a wedge: to wedge oneself through a narrow opening.
15. to knead (clay) so as to gain a uniform consistency.
16. to hem (someone) in.
17. Politics to target by means of wedge politics: voters were wedged on the Aboriginal issue.
–verb (i)
18. to force a way (in, etc.) like a wedge.
–phrase
19. thin end of the wedge, something small or insignificant which is likely to lead to something large and important: *That sort of thing's the thin end of the wedge for out and out Communism. –eleanor dark, 1938.
{Middle English; Old English wecg, related to Old Norse veggr wall, wedge}
–wedgy, adjective