Old English wecg (wedge, lump of metal), from Proto-Germanic *wagjaz. Cognate with Dutch wig, Old Norse veggr (wall), German Weck (a wedge-shaped bread roll). Connects via PIE *weǵh- to Latin vehere. Central to Anglo-Saxon timber-splitting, stoneworking, rune-cutting, and shield-wall tactics.
A piece of material thick at one edge and tapering to a thin edge, used for splitting, lifting, or securing — from Old English wecg and Proto-Germanic *wagjaz, cognate with German Weck (a wedge-shaped bread roll).
The Old English word wecg (meaning a wedge, a lump or piece of metal, a solid mass) is attested in Anglo-Saxon glossaries and legal texts, where it denotes both the physical tool and a wedge-shaped ingot or piece of metal used as a unit of value. Wecg derives from Proto-Germanic *wagjaz, a reconstructed form meaning 'a wedge' or 'something driven in', shared across the West Germanic branch: compare Middle Dutch wegge, Dutch wig, Old High German wecki, Middle High German wecke, and the modern German dialect word Weck or Wegge, which survives in Swabian and other southern German dialects as the name for a wedge-shaped bread roll — 'ein Weck' in Stuttgart is simply a bread roll, the shape preserving the original geometry of the word. Old Norse
In Swabian German, a bread roll is called a Weck — the same word as the carpenter's wedge. The traditional roll tapers at both ends, and medieval bakers named it for its shape without ceremony. The Proto-Germanic *wagjaz, which once described the iron tools that split oak logs and dressed