![accretionary wedge accretionary wedge](https://www.tekportal.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/accretionary-wedge-1540.jpg)
noun
- geology a body of deformed sediments, wedge-shaped in two dimensions or prism-shaped in three dimensions, that has been scraped off the surface of the oceanic lithosphere as it moves downwards beneath a continent or island arc. The sediments are added to the continental edge