edge control

English

Etymology

From edge +‎ control.

Noun

edge control (uncountable)

1. (cosmetics) A hair product formulated to hold down baby or fine hair.
2. (skating, skiing, snowboarding) The controlled use and placement of the edge of a skate, ski, or snowboard.
   • 1967 December, Doug Pfeiffer, “Instruction Corner”, in Skiing, volume 20, number 3, page 111:

     As a gauge of its importance, consider that when an instructor or racer speaks of someone having amazing edge control, he means that that skier is a master of the slopes.

   • 1997, Brian Boitano, ‎Suzanne Harper, Boitano's Edge: Inside The Real World Of Figure Skating, page 27:

     Many people say that skaters who had to do figures learned to freeskate better because figures teach you edge control.

   • 2010, Doug Werner, Snowboarder's Start-Up: A Beginner's Guide to Snowboarding, page 3:

     Skateboards roll. They do not slide. The demands of edge control aren't involved in the physics of this sport.

3. (kayaking) A skill in edging; the ability to maintain one gunwale higher than the other at a controlled angle.
   • 2002, Franco Ferrero, Canoe and Kayak Handbook, page 51:

     These help keep the knees locked into the side of the kayak and help with edge control.

   • 2017, Nigel Foster, The Art of Kayaking: Everything You Need to Know About Paddling, page 43:

     Analyze your edge control to figure out exactly what you need to do with your knee, foot, leg, hip, and body.

   • 2019, Ken Whiting, ‎Anna Levesque, ‎Kevin Varette, Whitewater Kayaking:

     This provides additional edge control over your kayak and helps keep your butt from falling out of the seat when you are upside-down.

4. (aviation) The management and manipulation of the edges of an aircraft's wings or control surfaces to enhance performance and stability.
   • 1975, Prediction of Unsteady Aerodynamic Loadings Caused by Leading Edge and Trailing Edge Control Surface Motions in Subsonic Compressible Flow, page 63:

     Trailing edge control surface configurations may be composed of a full span, inboard partial-span, outboard tip partial-span, or up to six individual control surfaces, including side-by-side common edge control surfaces, and nested controls.

5. (design) Control over the exact placement of edges on a line or shape one is mapping, cutting, or etching.
   • 1984, Aluminum Association Shape Control Workshop Papers, page 22:

     We do not feel that it is necessary to go below 3 inch rotors since an effective edge control strategy will control the narrow edge shape problem without an accurate measurement of the problem.

   • 2011, Hui Xuan Zhang, ‎Ye Han, ‎Fu Xiao Chen, Materials and Computational Mechanics, page 134:

     Edge control not only helps to meet the need for strip shape quality, but also improve the yield of strip.

   • 2018, William S. Levine, The Control Handbook, pages 11-15:

     Center and edge control of linewidth and isolated and nested lines have been the primary control metrics of interest for plasma etching .

   • 2020, Pengfei Hu, Chunming He, “Edge Computing-Based Solution and Framework for Software-Defined Industrial Intelligent Control in Industrial Internet of Things”, in Huansheng Ning, ‎Feifei Shi, editor, Cyberspace Data and Intelligence, and Cyber-Living, Syndrome, and Health, page 148:

     From the perspective of cyber-physical space mapping, the technologies of software definition and virtualization modeling are extended to edge hardware resources (including: terminal device resources, edge control device resources, edge computing resources, edge storage resources) and edge application services.

6. (law enforcement) The management of an unpredictable situation in order to prevent it from becoming physically dangerous.
   • 2012, Carol Archbold, Policing: A Text/Reader, page 399:

     It is conditioned by edge control, minimizing threats to personal danger, resolving the encounter, avoiding excessive paperwork, and getting on with something more interesting.

   • 2014, John P. Crank, Understanding Police Culture, page 174:

     In this section I describe edge control as a phenomenon associated with the contingent (or unpredictable) nature of police-citizen interactions.

   • 2018, Michael Caldero, ‎Jeffrey Dailey, ‎Brian Withrow, Police Ethics: The Corruption of Noble Cause, page 199:

     A great deal of police work is about edge control.

Usage notes

• In the context of aviation, the term edge control is usually qualified by the name of the edge being manipulated, as in leading-edge control or trailing-edge control.