I was looking at this text by Boris Vian: "Il était une fois un prince beau comme le jour. Il vivait entre son chien et son cheval, à l'orée d'un bois, dans un château aux murs gris et au toit mauve..." And the phrase "à l'orée d'un bois" stumped me. Went to the dictionary and found "edge or verge of a wood or forest". Now verge had me. I guess one can be on the verge of the woods. (A verge was originally a staff of authority that was transfered to their jurisdiction.) The French word, though it looks a lot like "breaded and fried" or "golden", is not from Latin aurum 'gold' but from Old French ours. not 'bear', but 'margin' edge' from Late Latin ora 'edge'. This is just the sort of word one would imagine coming across in Derrida or the like, but no, good old fashioned pseudo-Märchen theatre of the absurd instead. "Once upon a time there was a prince, handsome as the day. He lived between his hound and his horse, at the verge of a forest, in a castle with gray walls and a mauve roof ..."

James Fenimore Cooper (for one) seems to have *overused this term rather *excessively; e.g., "Joel, nothing suspecting, and keeping all his faculties on the sounds and sights that might occur in front, led the way diligently, and soon reached the verge of the woods.", and "With the miller, who thought little of anything but safety at that instant, he conversed a moment, and then pushed boldly on towards the verge of the cliffs." etc.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10434/10434-h/10434-h.htm

"The wretched animal heaved forth such groans
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears."

~ As You Like It, Act II, Scene 1.

I guess one can be on the verge of the woods.

You guess!? AHD, which I believe orders definitions by commonness of use, gives it as the first definition, although I am more familiar with the metaphorical usage given in definition 3 in the AHD entry. How this definition came about from the staff of power I'm not prepared to opine, but.


http://www.bartleby.com/61/23/V0062300.html

>>prepared to opine<<

Among its definitions, dic.com gives:

The extreme edge or margin; a border. See Synonyms at border.
An enclosing boundary;

The space enclosed by such a boundary;

The point beyond which an action, state, or condition is likely to begin or occur; the brink: on the verge of tears; a nation on the verge of economic prosperity; and

A rod, wand, or staff carried as an emblem of authority or office.
Obsolete. The rod held by a feudal tenant while swearing fealty to a lord.

All have to do with domain and, therefore, boundaries: whether of property of power. The rod in bold is the symbol of authority over real property which was, in Europe, explicitly defined in terms of boundaries. Verge, in its original sense, is thus the symbol of boundary.

There is, in larger Episcopal/Anglican churches, especially cathedrals, a liturgical officer, usually a lay person, who leads processions from one place to another within the liturgical space. This person, gowned in black and carrying a sort of wand known as the verge, is universally called the verger. Vergers are notoriously officious and tend to regard the mere clergy -- bishops, priests and deacons -- who they herd about as ignorant and straying cattle. When one is invited to participate in the liturgy of a strange church, one is doubtless thankful for the ministry of vergers, as they come to where one sits, when it is time for one to move, and, with a nod of (mock) respect, fetch one and lead one to where one is supposed to be ...and then come back, when it is time to go back to one's place, and lead one back there. Bless them all.

In French, verge has several meanings:

a) being on the brink (and all synonyms thereof)
b) a unit of agricultural measure / In Québec - a yardstick or the measure itself (3 feet).
c) a graduated ruler
d) a foldable ruler (pied-de-roi) or ruler made of material for a seamstress (galon)
d) a stick/baton/cerimonial baton/wand

A verger is a fruit orchard.

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I like the word orée. I think it is a rather pretty word. It is usually used when on the edge of something beautiful. If the forest was threatening or ugly, the author would probably used "au pied" - at the foot of, or "au bord" - on the edge of.