kedge

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

small anchor

• Bulgarian: спомагателна котва (spomagatelna kotva)
• Finnish: varppiankkuri
• French: ancre à jet (fr)
• German: Wurfanker m
• Greek: ισχάδα (el) f (ischáda), πινέλι (el) n (pinéli)
• Hebrew: עגן נגידה (he) m
• Italian: appennello m, ancorotto m
• Spanish: anclote (es) m
• Swedish: varpankare n
• Ukrainian: верп m (verp)

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

transitive

• Finnish: varpata (fi)
• French: touer (fr)
• Irish: ainligh
• Italian: appennellare

intransitive

• Finnish: varpata (fi)
• French: se touer (fr)