to walk in water, when partially immersed.
He wasn't swimming, he was wading.
to play in water.
The children were wading in the pool most of the afternoon.
to walk through water, snow, sand, or any other substance that impedes free motion or offers resistance to movement.
to wade through the mud.
to make one's way slowly or laboriously (often followed bythrough ).
to wade through a dull book.
Obsolete. to go or proceed.
Benjamin Franklin, 1800–78, U.S. lawyer and antislavery politician.
a male given name.
to walk with the feet immersed in (water, a stream, etc)
the girls waded the river at the ford
to proceed with difficulty
to wade through a book
(intr; foll by in or into) to attack energetically
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
To wade is to walk through water. If you've been fishing without a boat, you'll have to wade to reach your precious prize (if it gets away, you can brag about how big it was). When you wade, it doesn't have to literally be through a liquid; wading includes any action that involves a laborious slog through something that offers resistance. For example, you might attempt to wade through a huge book like Moby Dick. And if you want to get into a fight? Wade right on into the brawling crowd. Or if it's verbal fisticuffs you're after, wade right on in to the debate.
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Quite a few religions were considered cults in the beginning, Christianity among them, so it does make some sense not to wade too deeply into the finer distinctions.
From Salon • Jun. 25, 2026
But here at MarketWatch, we wade through these things so you don’t have to.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 17, 2026
Amid this upheaval, he wanted to be sure that his son, Septimius, inherited the wisdom of the ancient Greeks—but doubted whether Septimius would have the patience to wade through a vast corpus of 1,000-year-old works.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 8, 2026
She opened up about the latest body-shaming abuse in an Instagram post on Thursday, saying she felt she needed to "wade in and speak for myself".
From BBC • May 29, 2026
I was just fixing to get up and wade across when I chanced to look up at the train trestle.
From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
