Wiktionary

wed

See also: Wed, we'd, and Wed.

EnglishEdit

EtymologyEdit

From Middle English wedden, weddien, from Old English weddian (“to pledge; wed”), from Proto-West Germanic *waddjōn, from Proto-Germanic *wadjōną (“to pledge”), from *wadją (“pledge”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *wedʰ- (“to pledge”).

Cognate with Scots wed, wod, wad (“to wed”), Saterland Frisian wädje (“to bet, wager”), West Frisian wedzje (“to bet, wager”), Low German and Dutch wedden (“to bet”), German wetten (“to bet”), Danish vædde (“to bet”), Swedish vädja (“to appeal”), Icelandic veðja (“to bet”); more distantly, to Sanskrit वधू (vadhū́, “bride”). Related also to gage, engage, and wage.

PronunciationEdit

  • enPR: wĕdʹ, IPA(key): /ˈwɛd/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛd

VerbEdit

wed (third-person singular simple present weds, present participle wedding, simple past and past participle wed or wedded)

  1. (transitive) To perform the marriage ceremony for; to join in matrimony.
    The priest wed the couple.
  2. (transitive) To take as one's spouse.
    She wed her first love.
    • 2017 September 27, David Browne, "Hugh Hefner, 'Playboy' Founder, Dead at 91," Rolling Stone
      In 1989, he wed Playmate Kimberley Conrad, a marriage that ended in 2010. In 2013, he married his younger girlfriend, Crystal Harris, with whom he was still wed at the time of his death.
  3. (intransitive) To take a spouse.
  4. (reciprocal) To take each other as a spouse.
    They will wed in the summer.
  5. (figuratively, transitive) To join or commit to, more or less permanently, as if in marriage.
    I'm not wedded to this proposal; suggest an alternative.
    • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:
      Affliction is enamoured of thy parts, and thou art wedded to calamity.
    • 1663, John Tillotson, The Wisdom of being Religious:
      Men are wedded to their lusts.
    • 1962 April, “Death from Natural Causes?”, in Modern Railways, page 218:
      It will be a tragedy if further enterprises of this kind—for example, the one proposed between South Wales, Bristol and the South Coast via Salisbury—are now deferred until they, too, are realised too late to make an impact on a public that is too firmly wedded to the roads to be wooed back to the trains.
    • 2008, Bradley Simpson, Economists with Guns, page 72:
      […] the PPS paper proposed a political doctrine that wedded modernization theory to U.S. support for national security states […]
  6. (figurative, intransitive) To take to oneself and support; to espouse.
  7. (Northern England, Scotland) To wager, stake, bet, place a bet, make a wager.
    I'd wed my head on that.

SynonymsEdit

TranslationsEdit

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Translations to be checked

ReferencesEdit

AnagramsEdit

DutchEdit

PronunciationEdit

Etymology 1Edit

VerbEdit

wed

  1. first-person singular present indicative of wedden
  2. imperative of wedden

Etymology 2Edit

From Middle Dutch wedde, from a byform of Proto-Germanic *wadą, whence wad. Closely related with Middle High German wete, wettin f (“drinking place, shallow pond”). The Dutch appears to require a neuter *wadją (though feminine use is also attested), the High German a feminine īn-stem *wadį̄.

NounEdit

wed n (plural wedden, diminutive wedje n)

  1. ford, shallow river crossing
  2. drinking place for animals
SynonymsEdit
Related termsEdit
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