kedge

plural kedges

1. nauticalA small anchor used for warping a vessel.

   ...and throw them into the boat, which, as there are no wharves, we usually kept anchored by a small kedge, or keelek, just outside of the surf.

   1840, Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years Before the Mast

   1 more example

   The chaps who had gone off in the cutter had been equally spry with their job, bending on a stout hemp hawser through the ring of the kedge anchor, which they dropped some half a cable's length from the brig, bringing back the other end aboard, where it was put round the capstan on the forecastle.

   1896, J.C. Hutcheson, Young Tom Bowling

   Synonyms: kedge anchor, kedger, killock

2. YorkshireA glutton.

present singular third person kedges · participle present kedging · participle past kedged · past kedged

1. transitiveTo warp (a vessel) by carrying out a kedge in a boat, dropping it overboard, and hauling the vessel up to it.
2. intransitiveTo move with the help of a kedge, as described above.

   By noon the men had loaded the cargo & Prophetess was kedging out of the bay against unfavourable winds.

   2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN

   1 more example

   […] there was a stretch of twelve miles of channel running in a north-easterly direction which the ship could not possibly negotiate under sail unless a change of wind should occur — of which there seemed to be absolutely no prospect. The only alternative, therefore, would be to kedge those twelve miles; truly a most formidable undertaking for four persons — one of them being a girl — to attempt.

   1911, Harry Collingwood, Overdue