kedge

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English

WOTD – 17 April 2008

Etymology

Perhaps an alteration of cadge.

Pronunciation

  • (UK, US) IPA(key): /kɛd͡ʒ/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛdʒ

Noun

kedge (plural kedges)

  1. (nautical) A small anchor used for warping a vessel.
    Synonyms: kedge anchor, keelek, kedger
    • 1840, w:Richard Henry Dana Jr., w:Two Years Before the Mast:
      ...and throw them into the boat, which, as there are no wharves, we usually kept anchored by a small kedge, or keelek, just outside of the surf.
    • 1896, J.C. Hutcheson, Young Tom Bowling:
      The chaps who had gone off in the cutter had been equally spry with their job, bending on a stout hemp hawser through the ring of the kedge anchor, which they dropped some half a cable's length from the brig, bringing back the other end aboard, where it was put round the capstan on the forecastle.
  2. (Yorkshire) A glutton.

Translations

Verb

kedge (third-person singular simple present kedges, present participle kedging, simple past and past participle kedged)

  1. (transitive) To warp (a vessel) by carrying out a kedge in a boat, dropping it overboard, and hauling the vessel up to it.
  2. (intransitive, of a vessel) To move with the help of a kedge, as described above.
    • 1911, Harry Collingwood, Overdue:
      […] there was a stretch of twelve miles of channel running in a north-easterly direction which the ship could not possibly negotiate under sail unless a change of wind should occur — of which there seemed to be absolutely no prospect. The only alternative, therefore, would be to kedge those twelve miles; truly a most formidable undertaking for four persons — one of them being a girl — to attempt.
    • 2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN:
      By noon the men had loaded the cargo & Prophetess was kedging out of the bay against unfavourable winds.

Translations

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