wodge colloq. (orig. dial.).
(wɒdʒ)
Also wadge.
[Perh. phonæsthetic alteration of wedge: cf. wedge n. 4 and Eng. Dial. Dict.]
A bulky mass; a chunk or lump; a wad (of paper).
| 1860 All Year Round 28 July 368/2 The unhappy children [Blue-coat boys]..are compelled..to turn their skirts up and gird them in a great hot wadge about their loins. 1862 C. A. Collins Cruise upon Wheels xxiv. (1863) 413 That monstrous wadge of a dressing-gown. 1913 E. Pound Let. 7 Nov. (1971) 25, I don't want a great wadge of prose, but about double what we have at present. 1922 Chambers's Jrnl. Dec. 797/1 A ‘wodge’ in his left breast-pocket. 1949 D. Smith I capture Castle ii. viii. 112 You must take only one kind of food on the fork at a time; never a nice comfortable wodge of meat and vegetables together. 1958 Hayward & Harari tr. Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago i. vii. 195 He held out a wadge of papers across the hand⁓rail. 1963 A. Smith Throw out Two Hands iii. 39 We strode out into the rain with a wodge of well-stamped supplications. 1977 Private Eye 4 Mar. 7/3 True, there's a wadge of self-opinionated dolts who drive around in head scarves and Range Rovers. 1981 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 21 Mar. 968/1 A posterior pack is made from a wadge of gauze as large as the end of the patient's thumb, which is rammed tightly into the posterior choana. 1984 Listener 6 Dec. 35/1 These tomes are usually given a lively, busy design, with screaming wodges of colour. Ibid. 20–27 Dec. 7/2 Cross-headings, the lay reader should know, are those devices used to break a grey wodge of type and encourage you to keep reading. |