wade

See also: Wade and wadę

Contents

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /we͡ɪd/

• Audio (US)

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• Homophones: weighed, wayed
• Rhymes: -eɪd

Etymology 1

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).

Verb

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

Translations

to walk through water or something that impedes progress

• Bulgarian: пресичам (bg) (presičam), преминавам (bg) (preminavam), прецапвам (bg) (precapvam)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 涉水

• Dutch: waden (nl)
• Esperanto: vadi
• Finnish: kahlata, rämpiä (fi), tarpoa
• French: patauger (fr)
• Galician: avadar
• German: waten (de)
• Hungarian: átgázol (hu)
• Ido: vadar (io)
• Italian: guadare (it), procedere a stento, avanzare lentamente

• Latvian: brist
• Lithuanian: bristi
• Maori: kautū
• Norman: pataûgi
• Norwegian: vade, vasse
• Polish: brnąć (pl)
• Portuguese: vadear (pt)
• Scottish Gaelic: grunnaich
• Serbo-Croatian: probijati se, gacati (sh)
• Spanish: vadear (es)
• Swedish: vada (sv)
• Vietnamese: lội (vi)

to progress with difficulty

• Finnish: rämpiä (fi), tarpoa
• Hungarian: átgázol (hu), átvergődik

• Russian: пробираться (ru) (probiratʹsja), продираться (ru) (prodiratʹsja)

Noun

wade (plural wades)

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

Translations

act of wading

• Finnish: kahluu
• Italian: guado (it) m

• Portuguese: vadeação (pt) f, vadeamento m

Related terms

• wade in
• wade into
• wade through

Etymology 2

Noun

wade (uncountable)

1. Obsolete form of woad.

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

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for wade in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams

• Dawe, Dewa, awed

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Dutch

Pronunciation

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

Etymology 1

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”).

Noun

wade f (plural waden, diminutive waadje n)

1. popliteal

Descendants

• Afrikaans: waai

Etymology 2

Noun

wade f (plural waden, diminutive waadje n)

1. shroud

Derived terms

• lijkwade

Related terms

• gewaad

Etymology 3

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.

Noun

wade f (plural waden, diminutive waadje n)

1. type of trawl

Synonyms

• schrobnet

Hypernyms

• sleepnet

Etymology 4

Verb

wade

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of waden

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Middle English

Verb

wade

1. Alternative form of waden