wedge

One of the simple machines; a piece of material, such as metal or wood, thick at one edge and tapered to a thin edge at the other for insertion in a narrow crevice, used for splitting, tightening, securing, or levering.

Stick a wedge under the door, will you? It keeps blowing shut.

A piece (of food, metal, wood etc.) having this shape.

Can you cut me a wedge of cheese?

We ordered a box of baked potato wedges with our pizza, and an iceberg wedge as our side salad.

Something that creates a division, gap or distance between things.

Near-synonyms: wedge issue, salami tactics, culture wars

drive a wedge between [persons, peoples, camps, allies, etc.]

A five-sided polyhedron with a rectangular base, two rectangular or trapezoidal sides meeting in an edge, and two triangular ends.

A voussoir, one of the wedge-shaped blocks forming an arch or vault.

To support or secure using a wedge.

I wedged open the window with a screwdriver.

"Did he take his bottle well?" Mrs. Flanders whispered, and Rebecca nodded and went to the cot and turned down the quilt, and Mrs. Flanders bent over and looked anxiously at the baby, asleep, but frowning. The window shook, and Rebecca stole like a cat and wedged it.

To force into a narrow gap.

He had wedged the package between the wall and the back of the sofa.

I wedged into the alcove and listened carefully.

To pack (people or animals) together tightly into a mass.

To work wet clay by cutting or kneading for the purpose of homogenizing the mass and expelling air bubbles.

Of a computer program or system: to get stuck in an unresponsive state.

My Linux kernel wedged after I installed the latest update.

The person whose name stands lowest on the list of the classical tripos.

The last man is called the Wedge, corresponding to the Spoon in Mathematics.