wade

¹ American  

[weyd] / weɪd /

verb (used without object)

waded, wading

1. to walk in water, when partially immersed.

   He wasn't swimming, he was wading.

2. to play in water.

   The children were wading in the pool most of the afternoon.

3. to walk through water, snow, sand, or any other substance that impedes free motion or offers resistance to movement.

   to wade through the mud.

4. to make one's way slowly or laboriously (often followed bythrough ).

   to wade through a dull book.

   Synonyms:

   work, plow, plod, toil, labor

5. Obsolete. to go or proceed.

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verb (used with object)

waded, wading

1. to pass through or cross by wading; ford.

   to wade a stream.

noun

1. an act or instance of wading.

   We went for a wade in the shallows.

verb phrase

1. wade in / into

   1. to begin energetically.

   2. to attack strongly.

      to wade into a thoughtless child; to wade into a mob of rioters.

Wade ² American  

[weyd] / weɪd /

noun

1. Benjamin Franklin, 1800–78, U.S. lawyer and antislavery politician.

2. a male given name.

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wade ¹ British  

/ weɪd /

verb

1. to walk with the feet immersed in (water, a stream, etc)

   the girls waded the river at the ford

2. to proceed with difficulty

   to wade through a book

3. (intr; foll by in or into) to attack energetically

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noun

1. the act or an instance of wading

Wade ² British  

/ weɪd /

noun

1. ( Sarah ) Virginia. born 1945, English tennis player; won three Grand Slam singles titles: US Open (1968), Australian Open (1972), and Wimbledon (1977)

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Other Word Forms

• unwaded adjective
• unwading adjective
• wadable adjective

Etymology

Origin of wade

before 900; Middle English waden to go, wade, Old English wadan to go; cognate with German waten, Old Norse vatha; akin to Old English wæd ford, sea, Latin vadum shoal, ford, vādere to go, rush

Example Sentences

In the run-up to July's summit between Sir Keir and President Macron, the BBC witnessed French police wading into the sea south of Boulogne to slash the sides of a boat.

From BBC

Water reached the ribs of wading politicians and the lips of tall garbage cans.

From New York Times

His jokes don’t rely much on character work and they don’t tend to wade into big issues.

From New York Times

It is unknown, for example, whether wading through answers on a Google search makes people more discerning than being fed an answer by a chatbot.

From Scientific American

He designed and built a sun room onto her Maine home so she can paint looking through the panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows at nature without wading into its hazards.

From New York Times

Related Words

• bathe
• paddle
• splash
• stumble
• trek