WADE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Wade

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/weɪd/ Listen

verb

Wade v. t. To pass or cross by wading; as, he waded the rivers and swamps.

Wade v. i. (past & past part. waded; pres. part. wading)

1.

To go; to move forward. (Obs.) "When might is joined unto cruelty, Alas, too deep will the venom wade." "Forbear, and wade no further in this speech."

2.

To walk in a substance that yields to the feet; to move, sinking at each step, as in water, mud, sand, etc. "So eagerly the fiend... With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies."

3.

Hence, to move with difficulty or labor; to proceed slowly among objects or circumstances that constantly embarrass; as, to wade through a dull book. "And wades through fumes, and gropes his way." "The king's admirable conduct has waded through all these difficulties."

noun

Wade n. Woad. (Obs.)

Wade n. The act of wading. (Colloq.)

Woad n. (Written also wad, and wade)

1.

(Bot.) An herbaceous cruciferous plant (Isatis tinctoria) of the family Cruciferae (syn. Brassicaceae). It was formerly cultivated for the blue coloring matter derived from its leaves. See isatin.

2.

A blue dyestuff, or coloring matter, consisting of the powdered and fermented leaves of the Isatis tinctoria. It is now superseded by indigo, but is somewhat used with indigo as a ferment in dyeing. "Their bodies... painted with woad in sundry figures."

Wild woad (Bot.), the weld (Reseda luteola). See Weld.

Woad mill, a mill grinding and preparing woad.

See images of 'Wade'

Etymology of 'Wade'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Wade" Quotes from Famous Books

... serious defect in the equipment of the column is that there is not even a section of engineers with us. The want is the more felt as water is scarce and bad along the route; often the only water is a small pan or pond into which the mules wade breast high and churn it into mud, which the men have to make a shift to drink. A few sappers and a waggon with the advance guard would ensure a clean supply for everyone, since water that is quite ...

— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young

... He then took me to the Union Theological Seminary. In that institution about 120 young men are preparing for the Christian ministry. The library contains twenty thousand volumes on theology alone—musty and prosy tomes! What a punishment it would be to be compelled to wade through the whole! We saw neither professors nor students. My principal recollection of the place is that of feeling intensely hungry, and smelling at the same time the roast beef on which, in some of the lower regions of the buildings, ...

— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... her to take a servant with her in future when she goes upon her rambles," said Herbert quietly. "To be lost in the forest and have to wade through a brook and then finally be forced to call to her aid a stray huntsman, are things that I do not care to have repeated. Adelheid saw that as clearly as I, and will not go unattended ...

— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... trying to occupy myself with Nietzsche, on the theory that there must be something great about a man who exercised the immense influence that he did. But I confess I am no convert to any of his various moods. Here and there I find gems of thought, but one has to wade through a morass of blue mud to get at them. Here is a capital saying of his which may be new to you—in a letter to his friend Rohde he writes: 'Eternally we need midwives in order to be delivered of our thoughts,' We cannot work in solitude. 'Woe to us who lack the sunlight ...

— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... and where are they? I declare! down at the other end, and the water is three or four feet deep there when it is dry up here. Then put on top of it or under it two or three feet of mud and you have five to six feet in all, and that is an interesting state of things to wade through. We must stay at this end of the dock; and back of Aunt Stanshy's barn, I believe, are steps. I must work him up there, and do it myself somehow, for my shouting don't ...

— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand

Copyright © 2025 Free Translator.org