sledge

Meanings

Noun

• A heavy, long handled maul or hammer used to drive stakes, wedges, etc.
• A low sled drawn by animals, typically on snow, ice or grass.
• any type of sled or sleigh.
• A card game resembling all fours and seven-up; old sledge.
• An instance of sledging.

Verb

• to hit with a sledgehammer.
• To drag or draw a sledge.
• To ride, travel with or transport in a sledge.
• To verbally insult or abuse an opponent in order to distract them (considered unsportsmanlike).

Related

Similar words

• forehammer, sledgehammer

Origin

• From Middle English slegge, from Old English sleċġ ("sledgehammer; mallet"), from Proto-Germanic *slagjǭ. Cognate with Dutch slegge ("sledge"), Swedish slägga ("sledge"), Norwegian Bokmål slegge ("sledge"), Norwegian Nynorsk sleggje ("sledge"), Icelandic sleggja ("sledge"), German Schlägel.
• Dialectal Dutch sleedse, from Middle Dutch sleedse, from the root of sled.
• From Sledge, influenced by sledgehammer. Australian from 1960s.
  
• According to Ian Chappell, originated in Adelaide during the 1963/4 or 1964/5 Sheffield Shield season. A cricketer who swore in the presence of a woman was taken to be as subtle as a sledgehammer (meaning unsubtle) and was called “Percy” or “Sledge”, from singer Percy Sledge (whose song When a Man Loves a Woman was a hit at the time). Directing insults or obscenities at the opposition team then became known as sledging.