Hedge
1) An artificial boundary, erected to contain or protect. May be used as a verb or a noun, eg to
plant a hedge or to
hedge one's bets.
*In
gardening and
agriculture, a
hedge or hedgerow is a boundary formed by growing plants so that their limbs intertwine. This is the original meaning of the word. It may also refer to the
Osage-orange tree which is a commonly called a hedge tree.
*In
gambling and
finance, a
hedge is a bet or investment taken to reduce loss if another bet or investment turns out unfavourably.
*In
linguistics,
hedges are intentionally non-comittal or ambiguous
sentence fragments, such as "sort of", "kind of", "like".
2) As a prefix it "notes something mean, vile, of the lowest class" [Johnson] att. 1530, in the sense of plying one's trade under a hedge eg a
hedge-priest or
hedge-lawyer.
