ledge

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English legge (“a crossbar, a bar fixed across a door”),^[2][3][4] probably formed from Middle English leggen (“to lay, place”),^[2][5][6][7] a form of lay, from Old English lecgan.^[5][2] The OED notes that the various senses can all be explained in this way, and compares Middle High German legge (“layer, edge, border”);^[7][8][9] Dictionary.com also compares lecg, a part of a weapon.^[10] Others have proposed a Scandinavian source, cognate with Swedish lagg (“the rim of a cask”),^[4] but the OED doubts that Old Norse lǫgg (“rim of a cask”) even belongs to the same root,^[7] and Skeat also rejected it, comparing instead Norwegian lege (“a ledge”) and deriving the word from the Germanic base of lie.^[11] The OED also allows that an Old Northern French word lege, a leather strip on a packsaddle, may have been the immediate source.^[7] Johnson derived it from Dutch leggen (“to lie”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A bar or strip of wood fixed across the inside of a door, gate or shutter to brace it: 1273, in building accounts.^[2][3] The OED's first record is from about 1330.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, a crossbar, is now dialectal or technical;^[7][13] Palsgrave glossed ledge of a door as "bar",^[9] and in the dialects of Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, East Anglia and Somerset a ledge was the horizontal bar of a gate, chair or table.^[14][9] In Middle English it was also used of the boards on the centring of an arch and of a transverse deck beam.^[2] From 1535, in Coverdale's Bible, it meant a raised edge or lip along a board, a sense obsolete by 1801.^[7] The now usual sense, a narrow horizontal shelf at the top of a wall or projecting from it, is recorded from 1558,^[7][3][4] and a ridge of rocks, especially one near the shore under the sea, from 1555.^[7][4] The shelf on a cliff or mountain is dated to 1732 by the OED,^[7] but to the 1550s by Etymonline.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it first as "a row; layer; stratum".^[12] Mining used it from 1847 for a layer of ore-bearing rock or a quartz vein,^[7] and meteorology from 1949 for a layer in the ionosphere.^[7] The verb, to form a ledge, followed in 1598; since 1926 it has also meant to rest something on a ledge.^[7]

Timeline

• 1273 – legge, a crossbar on a door.^[2][3]
• c. 1330 – a bar or strip fixed across a door or gate.^[7]
• 1452 – the spelling ledge.^[3]
• 1535 – a raised edge along a board (obsolete by 1801).^[7]
• 1555 – a ridge of rocks, especially under the sea.^[7]
• 1558 – a narrow shelf on or projecting from a wall.^[7][3]
• 1598 – verb, to form a ledge.^[7]
• 1732 – a shelf-like projection on a rock or mountain.^[7]
• 1847 – in mining, a layer of ore-bearing rock.^[7]
• 1926 – verb, to place something on a ledge.^[7]
• 1949 – a layer in the ionosphere.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A narrow flat surface like a shelf projecting from a wall or along the top of it: a window ledge.^[15][6][7]
2. A narrow shelf of rock on the side of a cliff or mountain.^[15][7]
3. A ridge of rocks, especially one under water near the shore; a reef.^[15][6][7]
4. (mining) A layer of rock containing ore; a vein or lode.^[15][7]
5. A bar or strip fixed across a door, gate or piece of furniture; a batten.^[6][7]
6. A strip forming the raised edge of a shelf or tray.^[6]
7. (joinery) The side of a rebate against which a door or window closes.^[6][7]

Verb

1. To form a ledge.^[6][7]
2. To place or rest something on a ledge, or where it has only narrow support.^[6][7]

Word family

• ledgy
• ledgeless

Related words

• lay
• lie
• ledger

Usage notes

In recent slang ledge is also a shortening of legend, an admired person (from 2003), and in African American slang the ledge, from knowledge, is the facts of a situation (from 2000).^[16]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com