Hedging

hedging
    n 1: any technique designed to reduce or eliminate financial
         risk; for example, taking two positions that will offset
         each other if prices change [syn: {hedge}, {hedging}]
    2: an intentionally noncommittal or ambiguous statement; "when
       you say `maybe' you are just hedging" [syn: {hedge},
       {hedging}]
    

Hedge \Hedge\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Hedged}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Hedging}.]
   1. To inclose or separate with a hedge; to fence with a
      thickly set line or thicket of shrubs or small trees; as,
      to hedge a field or garden.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. To obstruct, as a road, with a barrier; to hinder from
      progress or success; -- sometimes with up and out.
      [1913 Webster]

            I will hedge up thy way with thorns.  --Hos. ii. 6.
      [1913 Webster]

            Lollius Urbius . . . drew another wall . . . to
            hedge out incursions from the north.  --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. To surround for defense; to guard; to protect; to hem
      (in). "England, hedged in with the main." --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. To surround so as to prevent escape.
      [1913 Webster]

            That is a law to hedge in the cuckoo. --Locke.
      [1913 Webster]

   5. To protect oneself against excessive loss in an activity
      by taking a countervailing action; as, to hedge an
      investment denominated in a foreign currency by buying or
      selling futures in that currency; to hedge a donation to
      one political party by also donating to the opposed
      political party.
      [PJC]

   {To hedge a bet}, to bet upon both sides; that is, after
      having bet on one side, to bet also on the other, thus
      guarding against loss. See hedge[5].
      [1913 Webster]
    

88 Moby Thesaurus words for "hedging":
      allowance, bickering, boggling, calculation, canniness, captious,
      captiousness, care, careful consideration, carefulness, caution,
      cautiousness, caviling, cession, chicane, chicanery, choplogic,
      circumscription, circumspection, concession, deliberate stages,
      deliberateness, deliberation, discretion, dodging, equivocation,
      equivocatory, evasion, evasive, exception, exemption,
      extenuating circumstances, fencing, gingerliness, grain of salt,
      grant, guardedness, hairsplitting, hedge, heed, heedfulness,
      hesitation, judiciousness, limitation, logic-chopping,
      mental reservation, mindfulness, modification, nit-picking,
      paltering, parrying, pawkiness, pettifoggery, petty, picayune,
      prevarication, prior consultation, prudence, prudentialness,
      pussyfooting, qualification, quibbling, regardfulness, reservation,
      restriction, safeness, safety first, salvo, shifting, shuffling,
      sidestepping, slowness to act, solicitude, special case,
      special treatment, specialness, specification, subterfuge,
      tentativeness, tergiversation, thoroughness, trichoschistic,
      trichoschistism, trifling, trivial, uncommunicativeness,
      unprecipitateness, waiver