rædan

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Old English

Alternative forms

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:

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

Pronunciation

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 VII)
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

Descendants

References

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia