edges

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of edge.

   Years of erosion had smoothed the rough edges of the canyon walls.

   The carpenter sanded the edges until they were perfectly even.

   Note

   A regular plural that carries every meaning of the singular: the boundaries of surfaces, the lines where two faces of a polyhedron meet, the cutting sides of blades. It is spelled exactly like the verb form in "she edges closer," so word order sorts them out. After a determiner or number (the edges, two edges) it is the noun. Directly after a subject it is the verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of edge.

   The cautious driver edges forward at the busy intersection.

   A neat row of boxwood edges the property along the road.

   Note

   One -s form covers both halves of the verb. It can be intransitive, where the subject itself creeps along (he edges toward the door). It can also be transitive, where something else is moved, trimmed or bordered (she edges the boat into the slip; he edges the lawn). The same form also reports a narrow win and, in cricket, a ball glanced off the bat's edge.

3. 3
   nounplural

   The fine hairs along the front of someone's hairline, usually a Black woman's, also known as baby hairs.

   The stylist laid her edges in delicate swirls along her forehead.

   She wrapped her hair at night to keep her edges neat and in place.

   Note

   A hair-care word from African-American Vernacular English. It exists only in the plural: people speak of her edges, never of a single edge. Carolyn M. Rodgers's Songs of a Black Bird (1969) already uses it in a poem about straightened hair, whose speaker never managed to keep them straight. It pairs naturally with keep, and with thick or dry. Baby hairs is the general-English equivalent.

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