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verge

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English has two words spelled verge, with different Latin sources: the noun meaning rod or edge, with a verb formed from it, and the verb meaning to incline.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

  • UK: /vɜːd͡ʒ/[4]
  • US: /vɝd͡ʒ/[4]

verge1 rod; edge, brink

Etymology

The rod or edge is inherited from Middle English verge,[5][6] borrowed from Old French verge (“twig, branch; measuring rod; penis; rod of office”),[2][7][5][1] inherited from Latin virga (“shoot, rod, stick, twig”),[2][8][5][3] a word of unknown or uncertain origin.[2][8] Merriam-Webster and Partridge connect the Latin word with the source of whisk.[3][9] It is also the source of verga, verga and verga,[5] and of virgule and virgate.[1][5] The Anglo-Norman noun is recorded from the first half of the 12th century, meaning a branch, rod or stick, a staff of authority, the penis, and the area subject to the jurisdiction of the Lord High Steward.[10] The verb meaning to border, to edge, is formed from the noun.[7][8][2][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The penis: before 1400, in a Stockholm medical manuscript.[7][1][12] Etymonline gives "rod, staff" about 1400.[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense "penis" soon dropped out of use, although the word is still a technical term for the male organ of some invertebrates (from 1774).[12][1][7] It was replaced by "rod or wand carried as an emblem of authority", recorded from 1493,[7][12] and the meaning "edge" grew from this: to be within the verge was to be within the area subject to the Lord High Steward, whose rod of office symbolized his authority, originally a radius of twelve miles round the king's court.[1][13][5][2] Weekley called it "a very curious sense-development".[13] The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins suggests instead the idea of a rod used as a boundary marker.[12] Barnhart records the border or margin of an object from 1459, the outermost edge of a wide area from 1593, in Shakespeare's Richard II, and the brink, the point at which something begins, from 1602;[8] the phrase on the verge of is attested by 1858.[2] The rod lived on in technical uses, such as the spindle of the balance in an old watch escapement (1704).[7][2] The verb, to provide with a border, appears in the early 17th century,[7][8] and its intransitive uses, to lie next to something (1789) and to border on a state or condition (1827), followed.[7] A verger is etymologically someone who carries an official rod.[1]

Timeline

  • before 1400 – the penis.[7]
  • 1459 – the border or margin of an object.[8]
  • 1493 – a rod or wand carried as an emblem of office.[7]
  • 1593 – the outermost edge of an extensive area, in Richard II.[8]
  • 1602 – the brink, the point at which something begins.[8]
  • 1621 – verb, to provide with a border (1605 in Barnhart).[7][8]
  • 1704 – watchmaking: the spindle of the balance in a vertical escapement.[7]
  • 1774 – zoology: the male organ of an invertebrate.[7]
  • 1789 – verb, to lie next to or along something (1787 in Barnhart).[7][8]
  • 1827 – verb, to border on a state or condition.[7]
  • 1858 – on the verge of, on the point of.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An edge, rim or margin.[14][15]
  2. The point beyond which something happens; the brink: The company was on the verge of collapse.[14][15][12]
  3. (British) A strip of grass along the side of a road.[14][15]
  4. (architecture) The edge of the roof tiles that projects over a gable.[14][15][16]
  5. A rod or staff carried before a bishop, dean or other official as an emblem of office.[3][15][7]
  6. (horology) The spindle of the balance in an old vertical escapement.[14][3][7]
  7. (zoology) The male organ of some invertebrates.[3][7][15]

Verb

  1. verge on: to come close to, or border on, a quality or condition: His calm verged on indifference.[3][7][15]
  2. To lie next to or along something.[3][7]
  3. To form or provide a border for.[3][7]

Word family

  • verger
  • vergeboard

verge2 to incline, tend

Etymology

The verb meaning to incline is borrowed from Latin vergō (“to bend, turn, incline, slope down”),[7][8][2][3][15] from Proto-Indo-European *werg- (“to turn”), from the root *wer- (“to turn, bend”).[2][17][4] The Latin verb is also the source of converge and diverge,[1][7] and Merriam-Webster and Barnhart relate it to wrench.[3][8] Its use was much influenced by the verb formed from the noun, especially in “verge on”.[13][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of the sun, to descend toward the horizon: 1610, in Giles Fletcher's Christ's Victory.[7][8][3]

Semantic evolution

From the sinking sun the verb spread to movement in any direction, especially downwards (1661, in Fuller),[7][2] and to inclining or tending toward a state or condition (1664).[7] Later uses are to lie or extend toward a point (1726), to pass gradually into something else (1757, in Burke) and to approach a shade of colour (1815).[7] Walter Scott still used the old sense in The Talisman: "The light was now verging low".[12] A noun verge, the act of inclining, was used briefly in 1661–62.[7]

Timeline

  • 1610 – of the sun, to sink toward the horizon.[7][8]
  • 1661 – to move in a certain direction; to extend.[7]
  • 1664 – to incline or tend toward a state or condition.[7]
  • 1726 – to lie or extend toward a point.[7]
  • 1757 – to pass gradually into something else.[7]
  • 1815 – to approach a shade of colour.[7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To incline or tend toward a state, condition or goal: The debate verged toward open hostility.[3][7][15]
  2. To move or extend in a particular direction.[3][7]
  3. To pass gradually from one state into another, as one colour into another: a blue that verges into grey.[3][7]
  4. Of the sun, to sink toward the horizon.[3][7][15]
  • virgule
  • virgate
  • converge
  • diverge
  • wrench

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  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 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  9. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b c d e f Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ 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)
  17. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt