figure vs wedge

figure

noun
  • A number, an amount. 

  • A visible pattern as in wood or cloth. 

  • A drawing or diagram conveying information. 

  • A human figure, which dress or corset must fit to; the shape of a human body. 

  • A form of melody or accompaniment kept up through a strain or passage; a motif; a florid embellishment. 

  • The form of a syllogism with respect to the relative position of the middle term. 

  • A figure of speech. 

  • The appearance or impression made by the conduct or career of a person. 

  • A person or thing representing a certain consciousness. 

  • A numeral. 

  • A horoscope; the diagram of the aspects of the astrological houses. 

  • Any short succession of notes, either as melody or as a group of chords, which produce a single complete and distinct impression. 

  • The representation of any form, as by drawing, painting, modelling, carving, embroidering, etc.; especially, a representation of the human body. 

  • A shape. 

  • Any complex dance moveᵂ. 

verb
  • To represent by a metaphor; to signify or symbolize. 

  • To write over or under the bass, as figures or other characters, in order to indicate the accompanying chords. 

  • To calculate, to solve a mathematical problem. 

  • To enter into; to be a part of. 

  • To think, to assume, to suppose, to reckon. 

  • To embellish with design; to adorn with figures. 

  • To embellish. 

  • To come to understand. 

  • To be reasonable. 

wedge

noun
  • A quantity of money. 

  • A háček. 

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

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

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

  • A barometric ridge; an elongated region of high atmospheric pressure between two low-pressure areas. 

  • The IPA character ʌ, which denotes an open-mid back unrounded vowel. 

  • A wedge tornado. 

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

  • One of the basic elements that make up cuneiform writing, a single triangular impression made with the corner of a reed stylus. 

  • A group of geese, swans, or other birds when they are in flight in a V formation. 

  • One of a pair of wedge-heeled shoes. 

  • A sandwich made on a long, cylindrical roll. 

  • A type of iron club used for short, high trajectories. 

  • The symbol ∧, denoting a meet (infimum) operation or logical conjunction. 

  • 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. 

  • A hairpin, an elongated horizontal V-shaped sign indicating a crescendo or decrescendo. 

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

  • A market trend characterized by a contracting range in prices coupled with an upward trend in prices (a rising wedge) or a downward trend in prices (a falling wedge). 

verb
  • To support or secure using a wedge. 

  • To force or drive with a wedge. 

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

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

  • To cleave with a wedge. 

  • To shape into a wedge. 

  • To force into a narrow gap. 

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

How often have the words figure and wedge occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )