A piece of metal, or other hard material, thick at one end, and tapering to a thin edge at the other, used in splitting wood, rocks, etc., in raising heavy bodies, and the like. It is one of the six elementary machines called the mechanical powers. See Illust. of Mechanical powers, under Mechanical.
A solid of five sides, having a rectangular base, two rectangular or trapezoidal sides meeting in an edge, and two triangular ends.
A mass of metal, especially when of a wedgelike form.
Anything in the form of a wedge, as a body of troops drawn up in such a form.
The person whose name stands lowest on the list of the classical tripos; -- so called after a person (Wedgewood) who occupied this position on the first list of 1828.
To cleave or separate with a wedge or wedges, or as with a wedge; to rive.
To force or drive as a wedge is driven.
To force by crowding and pushing as a wedge does; as, to wedge one's way.
To press closely; to fix, or make fast, in the manner of a wedge that is driven into something.
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.
To cut, as clay, into wedgelike masses, and work by dashing together, in order to expel air bubbles, etc.
Where there is a will, there is a way. If there is a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to keep what you want from ending, do it. Pry the door open or, if need be, wedge your foot in that door and keep it open. Pauline Kael
Our two party platforms were emphatic about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. For the Obama administration to remove this language from the Democratic Party platform drives a wedge into one of the few issues that our two parties agreed on. Paul Ryan
Taxes on capital, taxes on labor, inflation, bureaucratic regulation, minimum wage laws, are all - to different degrees - unnecessary slices of the wedge that stand between an individual's effort and reward for that effort. Jack Kemp
Guantanamo is a chief recruiting tool for al-Qaida. It has put a wedge between the United States and at least some of its allies. Eric Holder
We have to be that wedge that drives the question and asks the hard questions. Danny Glover
