From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Wedge \Wedge\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Wedged}; p. pr. & vb. n.
{Wedging}.]
[1913 Webster]
1. To cleave or separate with a wedge or wedges, or as with a
wedge; to rive. "My heart, as wedged with a sigh, would
rive in twain." --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
2. To force or drive as a wedge is driven.
[1913 Webster]
Among the crowd in the abbey where a finger
Could not be wedged in more. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
He 's just the sort of man to wedge himself into a
snug berth. --Mrs. J. H.
Ewing.
[1913 Webster]
3. To force by crowding and pushing as a wedge does; as, to
wedge one's way. --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
4. To press closely; to fix, or make fast, in the manner of a
wedge that is driven into something.
[1913 Webster]
Wedged in the rocky shoals, and sticking fast.
--Dryden.
[1913 Webster]
5. To fasten with a wedge, or with wedges; as, to wedge a
scythe on the snath; to wedge a rail or a piece of timber
in its place.
[1913 Webster]
6. (Pottery) To cut, as clay, into wedgelike masses, and work
by dashing together, in order to expel air bubbles, etc.
--Tomlinson.
[1913 Webster]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
wedged
adj 1: wedged or packed in together; "an impacted tooth" [syn:
{impacted}, {wedged}]
From The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003) [jargon]:
wedged
adj.
1. To be stuck, incapable of proceeding without help. This is different
from having crashed. If the system has crashed, it has become totally
non-functioning. If the system is wedged, it is trying to do something but
cannot make progress; it may be capable of doing a few things, but not be
fully operational. For example, a process may become wedged if it
{deadlock}s with another (but not all instances of wedging are deadlocks).
See also {gronk}, {locked up}, {hosed}, {hung} (wedged is more severe than
{hung}).
2. Often refers to humans suffering misconceptions. ?He's totally wedged ?
he's convinced that he can levitate through meditation.?
3. [Unix] Specifically used to describe the state of a TTY left in a losing
state by abort of a screen-oriented program or one that has messed with the
line discipline in some obscure way.
There is some dispute over the origin of this term. It is usually thought
to derive from a common description of recto-cranial inversion; however, it
may actually have originated with older ?hot-press? printing technology in
which physical type elements were locked into type frames with wedges
driven in by mallets. Once this had been done, no changes in the
typesetting for that page could be made.
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