sledge
pronunciation
How to pronounce sledge in British English:
UK [sledʒ]
How to pronounce sledge in American English:
US [sledʒ]
-
- Noun:
- a vehicle mounted on runners and pulled by horses or dogs; for transportation over snow
- a heavy long-handled hammer used to drive stakes or wedges
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- Verb:
- transport in a sleigh
- ride in or travel with a sledge
- beat with a sledgehammer
Word Origin
- sledge
- sledge: English has two words sledge. The sledge [OE] of sledgehammer [15] was once a word in its own right, meaning ‘heavy hammer’. It goes back to the prehistoric Germanic base *slakh- ‘hit’, source also of English slaughter, slay, etc. Sledge ‘snow vehicle’ [17] was borrowed from Middle Dutch sleedse. Like Dutch slee (source of English sleigh [18]) and Middle Low German sledde (source of English sled [14]), its ultimate ancestor was the prehistoric Germanic base *slid- ‘slide’ (source of English slide). Sledging ‘unsettling a batsman with taunts’ [20], which originated in Australia in the 1970s, may have been derived from sledgehammer.=> slaughter, slay, sly; sled, sleigh, slide
- sledge (n.1)
- "heavy hammer," Old English slecg "hammer, mallet," from Proto-Germanic *slagjo- (cognates: Old Norse sleggja, Middle Swedish sleggia "sledgehammer"), related to slege "beating, blow, stroke" and slean "to strike" (see slay (v.)). Sledgehammer is pleonastic.
- sledge (n.2)
- "sleigh," 1610s, from dialectal Dutch sleedse, variant of slede (see sled (n.)); said by OED to be perhaps of Frisian origin.
Example
- 1. So they pulled their sledge twenty-four kilometres without skis .
- 2. My sledge was broken , and I lost my dogs .
- 3. Then the sledge stopped again .
- 4. This sledge was used to bring water in wintertime .
- 5. A 16-year-old girl died last night after riding a makeshift sledge into a barbed wire fence .