| 词源 |
hedge. Hedge, in the form of hegge, is recorded in English as early as 785, referring to rows of bushes or trees, such as privet or hawthorn, planted in a line to form a boundary. In time the word hedge came to mean a safeguard and by the 16th century writers were using the word as a verb, meaning to protect one- self with qualifications, to avoid committing oneself. Shake- speare was the first to record the expression, in The Merry Wives of Windsor. |