wedged
wedged: adj. 1. To be stuck, incapable of proceeding without
help. This is different from having crashed. If the system has
crashed, it has become totally non-functioning. If the system is
wedged, it is trying to do something but cannot make progress; it
may be capable of doing a few things, but not be fully operational.
For example, a process may become wedged if it deadlocks with
another (but not all instances of wedging are deadlocks). See also
gronk, locked up, hosed, hung (wedged is more severe than
hung). 2. Often refers to humans suffering misconceptions. "He's
totally wedged -- he's convinced that he can levitate through
meditation." 3. [Unix] Specifically used to describe the state of a
TTY left in a losing state by abort of a screen-oriented program or
one that has messed with the line discipline in some obscure way.
There is some dispute over the origin of this term. It is usually
thought to derive from a common description of recto-cranial
inversion; however, it may actually have originated with older
`hot-press' printing technology in which physical type elements were
locked into type frames with wedges driven in by mallets. Once this
had been done, no changes in the typesetting for that page could be
made.
![[prev]](../gif/left.gif){kind=small}
![[up]](../gif/up.gif){kind=small}
![[next]](../gif/right.gif){kind=small}