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Shim vs Wedge - What's the difference?

shim | wedge |

As nouns the difference between shim and wedge

is that shim is a wedge while wedge is one of the simple machines; a piece of material, such as metal or wood, thick at one edge and tapered to a thin edge at the other for insertion in a narrow crevice, used for splitting, tightening, securing, or levering (Wikipedia article).

As verbs the difference between shim and wedge

is that shim is to fit one or more shims to a piece of machinery while wedge is to support or secure using a wedge.

shim

English

Etymology 1

Originally a piece of iron attached to a plow; sense of “thin piece of wood” from 1723, sense of “thin piece of material used for alignment or support” from 1860.

Noun

(en noun)
  • A wedge.
  • A thin piece of material, sometimes tapered, used for alignment or support.
  • (computing) A small library that transparently intercepts and modifies calls to an API, usually for compatibility purposes.
  • A kind of shallow plow used in tillage to break the ground and clear it of weeds.
  • A small metal device used to pick open a lock.

    • Verb

  • To fit one or more shims to a piece of machinery
  • To adjust something by using shims

    • Etymology 2

    .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (informal, often, derogatory) a person characterised by both male and female traits, or by ambiguous male-female traits, also called a he-she; transsexual.
  • * 1998 , Hobart Student Association, The Seneca review:
    • He — or "Shim " (she/him), as film director John Waters called the actor Divine — was as much a paradoxical as a perverse fellow.
  • * 1995 , The Advocate - May 30, 1995 - Page 11:
    • "We call him shim — short for 'she-him.'
  • (informal, often, derogatory) hermaphrodite.

    • References

    Anagrams

    * ----

    wedge

    English

    Etymology 1

    (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • One of the simple machines; a piece of material, such as metal or wood, thick at one edge and tapered to a thin edge at the other for insertion in a narrow crevice, used for splitting, tightening, securing, or levering ().
    • Stick a wedge under the door, will you? It keeps blowing shut.
  • A piece (of food etc.) having this shape.
    • Can you cut me a wedge of cheese?
  • (geometry) A five-sided polyhedron with a rectangular base, two rectangular or trapezoidal sides meeting in an edge, and two triangular ends.
  • (figurative) Something that creates a division, gap or distance between things.
  • * 2013 September 28, , " London Is Special, but Not That Special," New York Times (retrieved 28 September 2013):
    • It is one of the ironies of capital cities that each acts as a symbol of its nation, and yet few are even remotely representative of it. London has always set itself apart from the rest of Britain — but political, economic and social trends are conspiring to drive that wedge deeper.
  • (archaic) A flank of cavalry acting to split some portion of an opposing army, charging in an inverted V formation.
  • (golf) A type of iron club used for short, high trajectories.
  • A group of geese or swans when they are in flight in a V formation.
  • (in the plural) Wedge-heeled shoes.
  • (colloquial, British) A quantity of money.
    • I made a big fat wedge from that job.
  • (typography, US) =
  • * 1982 , Thomas Pyles and John Algeo, The Origins and Development of the English Language (3rd ed.), page 49
    • The wedge is used in Czech and is illustrated by the Czech name for the diacritic, ha?ek .
  • * 1996 , and William A. Ladusaw, Phonetic Symbol Guide (2nd ed.), page xxvi
    • The tilde and the circumflex have a place in the ASCII scheme but the wedge and the umlaut do not.
  • * 1999 , Florian Coulmas, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems , page 193, “há?ek”
    • The há?ek or ‘wedge'’ is a diacritic commonly used in Slavic orthographies. As a tone mark the ' wedge is used iconically for a falling-rising tone as in Chinese Pinyin.
  • (phonetics) The (l) character , which denotes an .
  • * 1996 , and William A. Ladusaw, Phonetic Symbol Guide (2nd ed.), page 19
    • Turned V is referred to as “Wedge ” by some phoneticians, but this seems inadvisable to us, because the ha?ek accent (?) is also called that in names like Wedge C for (?).
  • (label) The symbol , denoting a meet (infimum) operation or logical conjunction.
    • Synonyms
    * (group of geese) skein * (l)

    Verb

  • To support or secure using a wedge.
    • I wedged open the window with a screwdriver.
  • * 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), (w, Jacob's Room) Chapter 1
    • "Did he take his bottle well?" Mrs. Flanders whispered, and Rebecca nodded and went to the cot and turned down the quilt, and Mrs. Flanders bent over and looked anxiously at the baby, asleep, but frowning. The window shook, and Rebecca stole like a cat and wedged it.
  • To force into a narrow gap.
    • He had wedged the package between the wall and the back of the sofa.
  • To work wet clay by cutting or kneading for the purpose of homogenizing the mass and expelling air bubbles.

    • Derived terms

    * wedge issue * wedge politics * wedgie

    Etymology 2

    From Wedgewood, surname of the person who occupied this position on the first list of 1828.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (UK, Cambridge University, slang) The person whose name stands lowest on the list of the classical tripos.
  • * 1873 , Charles Astor Bristed, Five Years in an English University
    • The last man is called the Wedge , corresponding to the Spoon in Mathematics.
    Synonyms
    * wooden wedge
    See also
    * wooden spoon