Wed"der (?), n. See Wether. Sir W. Scott.
Wed"ding (?), n. [AS. wedding.] Nuptial ceremony; nuptial festivities;
marriage; nuptials.
Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth and of Boaz.
Longfellow.
Certain anniversaries of an unbroken marriage have received fanciful,
and more or less appropriate, names. Thus, the fifth anniversary is
called the wooden wedding; the tenth, the tin wedding; the fifteenth,
the crystal wedding; the twentieth, the china wedding; the
twenty-fifth, the silver wedding; the fiftieth, the golden wedding; the
sixtieth, the diamond wedding. These anniversaries are often celebrated
by appropriate presents of wood, tin, china, silver, gold, etc., given
by friends.
Wedding is often used adjectively; as, wedding cake, wedding cards,
wedding clothes, wedding day, wedding feast, wedding guest, wedding
ring, etc.
Let her beauty be her wedding dower.
Shak.
Wedding favor, a marriage favor. See under Marriage.
Wed"er (?), n. Weather. [Obs.] Chaucer.
Wedge (?), n. [OE. wegge, AS. wecg; akin to D. wig, wigge, OHG. wecki,
G. weck a (wedge-shaped) loaf, Icel. veggr, Dan. vægge, Sw. vigg, and
probably to Lith. vagis a peg. Cf. Wigg.]
1. A piece of metal, or other hard material, thick at one end, and
tapering to a thin edge at the other, used in splitting wood, rocks,
etc., in raising heavy bodies, and the like. It is one of the six
elementary machines called the mechanical powers. See Illust. of
Mechanical powers, under Mechanical.
2. (Geom.) A solid of five sides, having a rectangular base, two
rectangular or trapezoidal sides meeting in an edge, and two triangular
ends.
3. A mass of metal, especially when of a wedgelike form. "Wedges of
gold." Shak.
4. Anything in the form of a wedge, as a body of troops drawn up in
such a form.
In warlike muster they appear, In rhombs, and wedges, and half-moons,
and wings.
Milton.
5. The person whose name stands lowest on the list of the classical
tripos; — so called after a person (Wedgewood) who occupied this
position on the first list of 1828. [Cant, Cambridge Univ., Eng.] C. A.
Bristed.
Fox wedge. (Mach. & Carpentry) See under Fox. — Spherical wedge
(Geom.), the portion of a sphere included between two planes which
intersect in a diameter.