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

Even Lily gets interested in the commotion and wades into the pool.

From Literature

One step at a time they struggled forward, wading often up to their chests, in thick, sticky mud.

From Literature

How to handle Red Lobster’s sprawling portfolio of nearly 550 restaurants is just one of the issues that the company’s executives and investors are trying to wade through.

From The Wall Street Journal

Archives recount how former occupiers in the 20th Century used to remove their shoes to wade back and forth to the mainland.

From BBC

Twice they’d had to wade around a gap in waist-deep water.

From Literature

Related Words

• bathe
• paddle
• splash
• stumble
• trek