• (British) IPA: /vɜːd͡ʒ/
• (America) IPA: /vɝd͡ʒ/

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.

   • But on the horizon's verge descried, / Hangs, touched with light, one snowy sail.

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], OCLC 752825175 ↗:

     It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge of the prairie with the backwoods close by.

   1. (UK, Australia, New Zealand) The grassy area between the footpath and the street; a tree lawn.
   2. (figuratively) An extreme limit beyond which something specific will happen.

      I was on the verge of tears.

3. (obsolete) The phallus.
   1. (zoology) 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.
   • c. 1593, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act IV, scene i]:

     The inclusive verge / Of golden metal that must round my brow.

6. (architecture) The shaft of a column, or a small ornamental shaft.
7. (architecture) The edge of the tiling projecting over the gable of a roof.
8. (horology) The spindle of a watch balance, especially one with pallets, as in the old vertical escapement.

• (strip of land between street and sidewalk) see list at tree lawn

• Russian: жезл

• German: Rand
• Portuguese: beira, beirada
• Russian: грань
• Spanish: arcén

• Portuguese: orla

• German: Rand
• Portuguese: beira
• Russian: грань

verge (verges, present participle verging; 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.

• Portuguese: beirar
• Russian: грани́чить

1. Surname