HEDGE

The word 'hedge' may be used to refer to an artificial boundary, erected to contain or protect:

★ A 'hedge or hedgerow' in agriculture and in gardening is a lineal barrier or boundary made from growing plants planted and grown in such a way that their limbs intertwine. This is the original meaning of the word. It may also refer to the Osage-orange tree, sometimes called the "hedge tree".

★ A 'hedge' in gambling or finance is a bet or investment taken to reduce loss, should another bet or investment turn out unfavourably.

★ 'Hedges' in linguistics are intentionally non-committal or ambiguous sentence fragments, such as "sort of", "kind of", "like".
or as a prefix denoting something "mean, vile, of the lowest class" [Johnson] att. 1530, in the sense of plying one's trade under a hedge: e.g. a ''hedge-priest'' or a ''hedge-lawyer''.
The word may be used as both a noun and a verb: e.g. ''plant a hedge'' and ''hedge one's bets''.