Verge

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /vəːdÍ¡Ê’/
• US IPA: /vɝdÍ¡Ê’/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)dÊ’

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."

Full definition of verge

Noun

1. A rod or staff of office, e.g. of a verger.
1. (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.
2. An edge or border.
• John Milton (1608-1674)Even though we go to the extreme verge of possibility to invent a supposition favourable to it, the theory...implies an absurdity.
• Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)But on the horizon's verge descried,
  Hangs, touched with light, one snowy sail.
• 1879, Richard Jefferies, The Amateur Poacher Chapter 1, As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge of the prairie with the backwoods close by.
1. (UK, Australia, New Zealand) The grassy area between the sidewalk and the street; a tree lawn.
2. (figuratively) An extreme limit beyond which something specific will happen.
   I was on the verge of tears.
3. (obsolete) The phallus.
1. (zoology) The external male organ of certain mollusks, worms, etc.
4. An old measure of land: a virgate or yardland.
5. A circumference; a circle; a ring.
• William Shakespeare (1564-1616)The inclusive verge
  Of golden metal that must round my brow.
6. (architecture) The shaft of a column, or a small ornamental shaft.
7. (architecture) The edge of the tiling projecting over the gable of a roof.
8. (horology) The spindle of a watch balance, especially one with pallets, as in the old vertical escapement.

From Latin vergō ("to bend, turn, tend toward, incline"), from Proto-Indo-European *werg- ("to turn"), from a root Proto-Indo-European *wer- ("to turn, bend") (compare versus); strongly influenced by the above noun.

Verb

1. (intransitive) To be or come very close; to border; to approach.Eating blowfish verges on insanity.