From OE 'hecg,' from PIE *kagh- (to enclose) — the source of both garden hedges and hedge funds.
A fence or boundary formed by closely growing bushes or shrubs; a means of protection or defense against risk.
From Old English hecg (hedge, a fence of woven branches, an enclosure boundary), from Proto-Germanic *hagjo (hedge, enclosure, thicket), from PIE *kagh- (to catch, to seize — also used for the material sense of a wickerwork or woven-branch fence as something that catches and holds). The original object was a living fence: woven hawthorn or hazel branches that enclosed fields, defined property boundaries, and kept livestock in or out. The same root produced haw (hawthorn berry, from Old English haga, a hedge or enclosure), and contributed to place-names
A 'hedgehog' is literally a 'hedge-pig' — a spiny animal that lives in hedgerows and grunts like a pig. The financial term 'hedge fund' originated in 1949 when Alfred Winslow Jones created a fund that 'hedged' its bets by both buying and short-selling stocks simultaneously. Britain has approximately 700,000 km of hedgerows — enough to circle the Earth 17 times — many planted during the Enclosure Acts of the 18th and 19th centuries.