Word.ws English Dictionary

verge

UK/vɜːd͡ʒ//vɝd͡ʒ/

verge noun: a rod or staff of office, e.g. of a verger.

Noun

verge (plural verges)

  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.
    • Even though we go to the extreme verge of possibility to invent a supposition favourable to it, the theory[…]implies an absurdity.1848, John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy
    • But on the horizon's verge descried,
      Hangs, touched with light, one snowy sail.1852, Matthew Arnold, Stanzas from Carnac
    1. (Australia, New Zealand, UK, Western) The grassy area between the footpath and the street; a tree lawn; a grassed strip running alongside either side of an outback road.
      • The shoulders are graded and the verges cleared well back to lessen the chances of hitting stray stock.2000, Bob Foster, Birdum or Bust!, Henley Beach, SA: Seaview Press, page 129
      • On the other side of the car, another armed officer was seen attending to the passenger, who was lying on a grassy verge.2026 June 29, Kate Connolly, “Six adults killed in shooting at youth welfare facility in Stade, Germany”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
    2. (figuratively) An extreme limit beyond which something specific will happen.
      • I was on the verge of tears.
      • The tremendous tragedy in which he had been involved – it was evident he was a fugitive from Weybridge - had driven him to the very verge of his reason.1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 113
  3. (obsolete) The phallus.
    1. (obsolete) 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.
    • The inclusive verge
      Of golden metal that must round my brow.c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  6. The shaft of a column, or a small ornamental shaft.
  7. The eaves or edge of the roof that projects over the gable of a roof.
    • The smaller ribs of tiles that run down to the eaves, along the ridges in a hip-roof, or border the verge in a gable-roof , often terminate in some ornamental tile in high-relief .1885, Edward S. Morse, Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings
  8. The spindle of a watch balance, especially one with pallets, as in the old vertical escapement.

Verb

verge (third-person singular simple present verges, present participle verging, simple past and past participle verged)

  1. (intransitive) To be or come very close; to border; to approach.
    • Eating blowfish verges on insanity.
  2. To bend or incline; to tend downward; to slope.

Proper noun capitalized: Verge

Verge (plural Verges)

  1. A surname.

verge meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

verge in Tamil

எல்லை, ஒரம், ஓரம், விளிம்பு

verge in Urdu

کنارہ, لب, ڈھالو ہونا, جھکنا, مائل ہونا, مڑنا

verge in Malayalam

അതിർത്തി, വക്ക്, ഓരം

verge in Kannada

ಬದಿ, ಅಂಚು, ದಂಡೆ, ದಡ, ತುತ್ತತುದಿ, ಎಲ್ಲೆ
More languagesFewer languages
verge in Punjabi
نکر nukkar
verge in Sanskrit
परिसर parisara
verge in Indonesian
ambang

Examples of verge in a sentence

  • She was a frequent blinker, always on the verge of tears.
  • Her ideas seem to verge on the edge of brilliance and madness.
  • Common green corridors include railway embankments, river banks and roadside grass verges.

All 40 example sentences with verge

Synonyms of verge

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of verge

Forms of verge

Noun
pluralverges
Verb
third-person singular presentverges
present participleverging
past participleverged
pastverged
Proper noun
pluralVerges

Plural of verge: verges

Origin of verge

Borrowed 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." Doublet of virga.

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

Words formed from verge

Phrases with verge

Words that rhyme with verge

6 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about verge

What does verge mean?
Verge means a rod or staff of office, e.g. of a verger.
What is verge in Tamil?
Verge in Tamil is எல்லை, ஒரம், ஓரம். See Verge meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is verge?
Verge can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce verge?
Verge is pronounced /vɜːd͡ʒ/ (UK).
What is the plural of verge?
The plural of verge is verges.

Words near verge in the dictionary

  1. vergaloues
  2. Vergara
  3. Vergaras
  4. vergasovaite
  5. Vergaña
  6. verge
  7. verge escapement
  8. verge escapements
  9. verge on
  10. verge staff
  11. verge staffs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: verge (page history and authors); Verge (page history and authors); verge (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); verge (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); verge (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); verge (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); نکر (Punjabi) (page history and authors); परिसर (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-verge.ogg, en-us-verge.ogg.

Cite this entry: “verge.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/verge. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.