wade

• IPA^(key): /we͡ɪd/

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• Homophones: weighed, wayed
• Rhymes: -eɪd

From Middle English waden, from Old English wadan, from Proto-Germanic *wadaną, from Proto-Indo-European *weh₂dʰ- (“to go”). Cognates include German waten (“wade”) and Latin vādō (“go, walk; rush”) (whence English evade, invade, pervade).

wade (third-person singular simple present wades, present participle wading, simple past and past participle waded)

1. (intransitive) to walk through water or something that impedes progress.
   • Milton

     So eagerly the fiend […] / With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, / And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.

   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter VIII

     After breakfast the men set out to hunt, while the women went to a large pool of warm water covered with a green scum and filled with billions of tadpoles. They waded in to where the water was about a foot deep and lay down in the mud. They remained there from one to two hours and then returned to the cliff.

2. (intransitive) to progress with difficulty

   to wade through a dull book

   • Dryden

     And wades through fumes, and gropes his way.

   • Davenant

     The king's admirable conduct has waded through all these difficulties.

3. (transitive) to walk through (water or similar impediment); to pass through by wading

   wading swamps and rivers

4. (intransitive) To enter recklessly.

   to wade into a fight or a debate

wade (plural wades)

1. An act of wading.
2. (colloquial) A ford; a place to cross a river.

• wade in
• wade into
• wade through

wade (uncountable)

1. Obsolete form of woad.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Mortimer to this entry?)

• Dawe, Dewa, awed

• IPA^(key): /ˈʋaː.də/
• Hyphenation: wa‧De
• Rhymes: -aːdə

From Middle Dutch wade, from Old Dutch *watho, from Proto-Germanic *waþwô.

Cognate with German Wade (“calf (of leg)”), Swedish vad (“calf (of leg)”) and Afrikaans waai (“popliteal”).

wade f (plural waden, diminutive waadje n)

1. popliteal

• Afrikaans: waai

wade f (plural waden, diminutive waadje n)

1. shroud

• lijkwade

• gewaad

From Middle Dutch wade, reformed from waet through influence of the collective gewade (modern gewaad). Further from Old Dutch *wāt, from Proto-Germanic *wēd-.

Cognate with Middle High German wāt, Old Saxon wād, Old English wǣd, Old Norse váð.

wade f (plural waden, diminutive waadje n)

1. type of trawl

• schrobnet

• sleepnet

wade

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of waden

wade

1. Alternative form of waden