wedged
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. 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.
[Jargon File]
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