Also 7 verdge. [f. VERGE sb.1]
† 1. trans. a. To provide with a specified kind of verge or border; to edge. Chiefly in passive. Also with about. Obs.
1605. J. Rosier, in Capt. Smith, Virginia (1624), I. 20. An equall plaine … verged with a greene border of grasse.
1621. Markham, Prev. Hunger, 13. This Net shall be verdgd on each side with very strong Corde. [Hence in later works.] Ibid. (1625), Bk. Hon., II. x. § 10. Long Mantles … verdged about with a small fringe of siluer.
1708. New View of London, I. 101/1. The Figures of a Man and a Woman in Brass, and the Stone verged with Plates of the same.
b. To bound or limit by something. rare–1.
1759. Mills, trans. Duhamel’s Husb., I. viii. 20. Sending … for horse-dung, to manure those very lands which never fail of being verg’d, or bottom’d, by a substance … more proper for the end they aim at.
c. To form the verge or limit of.
1817. Chalmers, Astron. Disc., iv. (1830), 132. How to draw the vigorous land-mark which verges the field of legitimate discovery.
d. To pass along the verge or edge of; to skirt.
1890. F. Barrett, Betw. Life & Death, II. xxviii. 179. The chariot can verge the daïs all the way.
2. intr. a. To be contiguous or adjacent to; to lie on the verge of. Const. on or upon, along.
1787. G. White, Selborne, vii. Forests and wastes … are of considerable service to neighbourhoods that verge upon them.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., II. 37. The air was still; The blue mist, thinly scatter’d round, Verg’d along the distant hill.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Note-Bks. (1872), I. 11. The Place de la Concorde…, verging on which is the Champs Elysées.
b. To border on or upon some state, condition, etc. (Cf. VERGE v.2 3.)
1825. [see VERGENCY1].
1827. Faraday, Chem. Manip., vii. (1842), 197. Mercury or zinc require one [sc. a temperature] verging upon, or even surpassing, a red heat.
1853. C. Brontë, Vilette, xviii. Your generosity must have verged on extravagance.
1874. H. R. Reynolds, John Bapt., v. § 3. 352. Philo, however, verges on allowing the λόγος to be the centre of the personality of God.
fig. 1842. Tennyson, Gardener’s Dau., 71. Vague desires … made … all kinds of thought, That verged upon them, sweeter than the dream [etc.].
3. To rise up so as to show the edge. rare–1.
1726–46. Thomson, Winter, 868. Wish’d Spring returns; and … The welcome sun, just verging up at first, By small degrees extends the swelling curve!
Hence Verging ppl. a.
1796. W. H. Marshall, W. England, I. 165. Wild Deer … were found very injurious to the verging crops.
