Adjacent Words

Hedging definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

HEDG'ING, ppr. Inclosing with a hedge; obstructing; confining.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: any technique designed to reduce or eliminate financial risk; for example, taking two positions that will offset each other if prices change [syn: hedge, hedging]
2: an intentionally noncommittal or ambiguous statement; "when you say `maybe' you are just hedging" [syn: hedge, hedging]

Britannica Concise

Method of reducing the risk of loss caused by price fluctuation. It consists of the purchase or sale of equal quantities of the same or very similar commodities in two different markets at approximately the same time, with the expectation that a future change in price in one market will be offset by an opposite change in the other market. For example, a grain-elevator operator may agree to buy a ton of wheat and at the same time sell a futures contract for the same quantity of wheat; when the wheat is sold, he buys back the futures contract. If the grain price has dropped, he can buy back the futures contract for less than he sold it for; his profit from doing so will be offset by his loss on the grain. Hedging is also common in the securities and foreign-exchange markets. See also stock option.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Hedge Hedge, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Hedged; p. pr. & vb. n. Hedging.] 1. To inclose or separate with a hedge; to fence with a thickly set line or thicket of shrubs or small trees; as, to hedge a field or garden. 2. To obstruct, as a road, with a barrier; to hinder from progress or success; -- sometimes with up and out. I will hedge up thy way with thorns. --Hos. ii. 6. Lollius Urbius . . . drew another wall . . . to hedge out incursions from the north. --Milton. 3. To surround for defense; to guard; to protect; to hem (in). ``England, hedged in with the main.'' --Shak. 4. To surround so as to prevent escape. That is a law to hedge in the cuckoo. --Locke. To hedge a bet, to bet upon both sides; that is, after having bet on one side, to bet also on the other, thus guarding against loss.

Moby Thesaurus

allowance, bickering, boggling, calculation, canniness, captious, captiousness, care, careful consideration, carefulness, caution, cautiousness, caviling, cession, chicane, chicanery, choplogic, circumscription, circumspection, concession, deliberate stages, deliberateness, deliberation, discretion, dodging, equivocation, equivocatory, evasion, evasive, exception, exemption, extenuating circumstances, fencing, gingerliness, grain of salt, grant, guardedness, hairsplitting, hedge, heed, heedfulness, hesitation, judiciousness, limitation, logic-chopping, mental reservation, mindfulness, modification, nit-picking, paltering, parrying, pawkiness, pettifoggery, petty, picayune, prevarication, prior consultation, prudence, prudentialness, pussyfooting, qualification, quibbling, regardfulness, reservation, restriction, safeness, safety first, salvo, shifting, shuffling, sidestepping, slowness to act, solicitude, special case, special treatment, specialness, specification, subterfuge, tentativeness, tergiversation, thoroughness, trichoschistic, trichoschistism, trifling, trivial, uncommunicativeness, unprecipitateness, waiver