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Wedge vs Shape - What's the difference?

wedge | shape |

As nouns the difference between wedge and shape

is that 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) while shape is the status or condition of something.

As verbs the difference between wedge and shape

is that wedge is to support or secure using a wedge while shape is to give something a shape and definition.

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

    shape

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The status or condition of something
    • The used bookshop wouldn't offer much due to the poor shape of the book.
  • Condition of personal health, especially muscular health.
    • The vet checked to see what kind of shape the animal was in.
    We exercise to keep in good physical shape .
  • The appearance of something, especially its outline.
    • He cut a square shape out of the cake.
  • A figure with unspecified appearance; especially a geometric figure.
    • What shape shall we use for the cookies? Stars, circles, or diamonds?
  • Form; formation.
  • * 2006 , Berdj Kenadjian, Martin Zakarian, From Darkness to Light :
    • What if God's plans and actions do mold the shape of human events?
  • (iron manufacture) A rolled or hammered piece, such as a bar, beam, angle iron, etc., having a cross section different from merchant bar.
  • (iron manufacture) A piece which has been roughly forged nearly to the form it will receive when completely forged or fitted.
  • A mould for making jelly, blancmange etc., or a piece of such food formed moulded into a particular shape.
  • *1918 , (Rebecca West), The Return of the Soldier , Virago 2014, p. 74:
  • *:‘And if I'm late for supper there's a dish of macaroni cheese you must put in the oven and a tin of tomatoes to eat with it. And there's a little rhubarb and shape .’

    • Hyponyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * contest shape * * in no shape to * * in shape * out of shape * shapeless * shapely * shapesmith * shape-shifter * shape-shifting * shipshape * take shape * the shape of things to come * whip into shape

    See also

    *

    Verb

  • To give something a shape and definition.
  • * 1932 , The American Scholar , page 227, United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa
    • The professor never pretended to the academic prerogative of forcing his students into his own channels of reasoning; he entered into and helped shape the discussion but above all he made his men learn to think for themselves and rely upon their own intellectual judgments.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Revenge of the nerds , passage=Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food.}}
  • To form or manipulate something into a certain shape.
  • * Prior
    • Grace shaped her limbs, and beauty decked her face.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2010, date=December 29, author=Mark Vesty, work=BBC
    • , title= Wigan 2-2 Arsenal , passage=Bendtner's goal-bound shot was well saved by goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi but fell to Arsahvin on the edge of the area and the Russian swivelled, shaped his body and angled a sumptuous volley into the corner. }}
  • (of a country, person, etc) To give influence to.
  • To suit; to be adjusted or conformable.
    • (Shakespeare)
  • (obsolete) To imagine; to conceive.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Oft my jealousy / Shapes faults that are not.

    Synonyms

    * (give shape) form, mold

    Derived terms

    * beshape * foreshape * forshape * misshape * overshape * shape up

    Anagrams

    * * * 1000 English basic words