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verge

1. A rod or staff, carried as an emblem of authority; as, the verge, carried before a dean.

2. The stick or wand with which persons were formerly admitted tenants, they holding it in the hand, and swearing fealty to the lord. Such tenants were called tenants by the verge.

3. The compass of the court of Marshalsea and the Palace court, within which the lord steward and the marshal of the king's household had special jurisdiction; so called from the verge, or staff, which the marshal bore.

4. A virgate; a yardland.

5. A border, limit, or boundary of a space; an edge, margin, or brink of something definite in extent. Even though we go to the extreme verge of possibility to invent a supposition favorable to it, the theory . . . Implies an absurdity. (J. S. Mill) But on the horizon's verge descried, Hangs, touched with light, one snowy sail. (M. Arnold)

6. A circumference; a circle; a ring. The inclusive verge Of golden metal that must round my brow. (Shak)

7. The shaft of a column, or a small ornamental shaft. The edge of the tiling projecting over the gable of a roof.

8. The spindle of a watch balance, especially one with pallets, as in the old vertical escapement. See Escapement.

9. (Science: botany) The edge or outside of a bed or border. A slip of grass adjoining gravel walks, and dividing them from the borders in a parterre 62e .

10. The penis.

11. (Science: zoology) The external male organ of certain mollusks, worms, etc.

Synonym: border, edge, rim, brim, margin, brink.

Origin: F. Verge, L. Virga; perhaps akin to E. Wisp.