rædan

Old English

Etymology

From a merger of two verbs, which came to be pronounced the same in the present tense and the infinitive due to regular sound change:

• Proto-West Germanic *rādan, from Proto-Germanic *rēdaną (“to advise”, strong verb)
• Proto-West Germanic *raidijan, from Proto-Germanic *raidijaną (“to make ready”, weak verb).

The past tense form reordon preserves the zero-grade reduplicated plural stem *re-rd-un.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈræː.dɑn/

Verb

rǣdan

1. to read
   • c. 992, Ælfric, "Midlent Sunday"

     Nis nā ġenōg þæt þū stafas sċēawiġe būtan þū hīe ēac rǣde and þæt andġiet understande.

     It is not enough that you look at letters unless you also read them and understand the meaning.

2. to advise
3. to guess
4. to interpret, explain

   swefn rǣdan ― to interpret a dream

5. to decide

Usage notes

• The verb was originally strong class 7, but changed to weak class 1 in later Old English.
• The reduplicated past tense forms reord, reorde, reordon were almost completely absent in West Saxon, mostly appearing in Anglian texts. Nonetheless, it was still more common to see the weak class 1 conjugation than the strong class 7 conjugation in Anglian.

Conjugation

Strong class 7 conjugation:

Conjugation of rǣdan (strong class 7)

infinitive	rǣdan	rǣdenne
indicative mood	present tense	past tense
first person singular	rǣde	rēd, reord
second person singular	rǣtst	rēde, reorde
third person singular	rǣtt, rǣt	rēd, reord
plural	rǣdaþ	rēdon, reordon
subjunctive	present tense	past tense
singular	rǣde	rēde, reorde
plural	rǣden	rēden, reorden
imperative
singular	rǣd
plural	rǣdaþ
participle	present	past
	rǣdende	(ġe)rǣden

Weak class 1 conjugation:

Conjugation of rǣdan (weak class 1)

infinitive	rǣdan	rǣdenne
indicative mood	present tense	past tense
first person singular	rǣde	rǣdde
second person singular	rǣdest, rǣtst	rǣddest
third person singular	rǣdeþ, rǣtt, rǣt	rǣdde
plural	rǣdaþ	rǣddon
subjunctive	present tense	past tense
singular	rǣde	rǣdde
plural	rǣden	rǣdden
imperative
singular	rǣd
plural	rǣdaþ
participle	present	past
	rǣdende	(ġe)rǣded

Derived terms

• berǣdan
• forrǣdan
• misrǣdan
• oferrǣdan
• ondrǣdan
• ārǣdan
• ġerǣdan

 

Descendants

• Middle English: reden, readen, redden, riden, raden, ruden, redan, readan, ræden, rædon (Early Middle English)
  • English: read, rede
  • Scots: rede
  • Yola: reade