Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary - verge

 I. noun  Etymology: Middle English, rod, measuring rod, margin, from Anglo-French, rod, area of jurisdiction, from Latin virga twig, rod, line  Date: 15th century  1.  a.  (1) a rod or staff carried as an emblem of authority or symbol of office  (2) obsolete a stick or wand held by a person being admitted to tenancy while he swears fealty  b. the spindle of a watch balance; especially a spindle with pallets in an old vertical escapement  c. the male copulatory organ of any of various invertebrates  2.  a. something that borders, limits, or bounds: as  (1) an outer margin of an object or structural part  (2) the edge of roof covering (as tiling) projecting over the gable of a roof  (3) British a paved or planted strip of land at the edge of a road ; shoulder  b. brink, threshold a country on the ~ of destruction — Archibald MacLeish  II. intransitive verb  (~d; verging)  Date: 1787  1. to be contiguous  2. to be on the ~ or border the line where sentiment ~s on mawkishness — Thomas Hardy  III. intransitive verb  (~d; verging)  Etymology: Latin ~re to bend, incline — more at wrench  Date: 1610  1.  a. of the sun to move or tend toward the horizon ; sink  b. to move or extend in some direction or toward some condition verging to a hasty decline — Edward Gibbon  2. to be in transition or change