ride

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See also: ridé and řídě

English

Etymology

From Middle English riden, from Old English rīdan, from Proto-West Germanic *rīdan, from Proto-Germanic *rīdaną, from Proto-Indo-European *Hreydʰ-, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃reyH-.

Pronunciation

Verb

ride (third-person singular simple present rides, present participle riding, simple past rode or (obsolete) rade or (obsolete) rid, past participle ridden or (now colloquial and nonstandard) rode)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) To transport oneself by sitting on and directing a horse, later also a bicycle etc.
    I ride to work every day and park the bike outside the office.
    • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, ”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
      Go Peto, to horse: for thou, and I, / Haue thirtie miles to ride yet ere dinner time.
    • 1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter XV, in Mansfield Park: , volume I, London: for T Egerton, , →OCLC, page 310:
      [] I will take my horse early to-morrow morning and ride over to Stoke, and settle with one of them.
    • 1852, William Makepeace Thackeray, “I Go on the Vigo Bay Expedition, Taste Salt Water and Smell Powder”, in The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. , volume II, London: Smith, Elder, & Company, , →OCLC, page 96:
      He rid to the end of the village, where he alighted and ſent a man thence to Mr. Tuſher with a meſſage that a gentleman of London would ſpeak to him on urgent buſineſs.
    • 1923 April 28, “Mrs. Rinehart”, in Time:
      It is characteristic of her that she hates trains, that she arrives from a rail-road journey a nervous wreck; but that she can ride a horse steadily for weeks through the most dangerous western passes.
    • 2010 October 6, The Guardian:
      The original winner Azizulhasni Awang of Malaysia was relegated after riding too aggressively to storm from fourth to first on the final bend.
  2. (transitive, intransitive) To be transported in a vehicle; to travel as a passenger.
    • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
      Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore.
    • 1960 June 20, “Biznelcmd”, in Time:
      In an elaborately built, indoor San Francisco, passengers ride cable cars through quiet, hilly streets.
  3. (transitive, informal, chiefly US and South Africa) To transport (someone) in a vehicle.
    The cab rode him downtown.
  4. (intransitive) Of a ship: to sail, to float on the water.
  5. (transitive, intransitive) To be carried or supported by something lightly and quickly; to travel in such a way, as though on horseback.
    The witch cackled and rode away on her broomstick.
  6. (transitive) To traverse by riding.
    • 1999, David Levinson, Karen Christensen, Encyclopedia of World Sport: From Ancient Times to the Present:
      Early women tobogganists rode the course in the requisite attire of their day: skirts. In spite of this hindrance, some women riders turned in very respectable performances.
  7. (transitive) To convey, as by riding; to make or do by riding.
    How many races have you ridden this year?
  8. (transitive, figuratively) To exploit or take advantage of (a situation).
    • 1964 June 16, “All Eyes On Lema At U.S. Open This Week”, in The Indianapolis Star, volume 62, number 11, Indianapolis, Ind., page 22:
      Now the question is: Can Lema ride his present impetus to a third tournament victory in the pressure-loaded Open or will he run out of steam?
    • 2006 October 7, Andrew Pollack, “Which Cows Do You Trust?”, in The New York Times:
      By labeling milk free of the artificial hormone, the dairy industry can ride the popularity of natural foods, without the greater expense and special feeds required to produce milk that can be fully certified as “organic.”
  9. (intransitive) To support a rider, as a horse; to move under the saddle.
    A horse rides easy or hard, slow or fast.
  10. (transitive, intransitive, slang) To mount (someone) to have sex with them.
    • 1997, Linda Howard, Son of the Morning, page 345:
      She rode him hard, and he squeezed her breasts, and she came again.
    • 2006, Noire , Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 152:
      Isis rode my mug like she was on a ten-inch dick, and as soon as she nutted I tossed her ass off a me and flipped her on her back, then fucked the shit outta her cause it was payback time.
  11. (transitive, intransitive, Ireland, slang) To have sex with (someone).
  12. (transitive, colloquial) To nag or criticize; to annoy (someone).
    • 2002, Myra MacPherson, Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the haunted generation, page 375:
      “One old boy started riding me about not having gone to Vietnam; I just spit my coffee at him, and he backed off.
  13. (intransitive) Of clothing: to gradually move (up) and crease; to ruckle.
    • 2008 July 27, Ann Kessel, The Guardian:
      In athletics, triple jumper Ashia Hansen advises a thong for training because, while knickers ride up, ‘thongs have nowhere left to go’: but in Beijing Britain's best are likely, she says, to forgo knickers altogether, preferring to go commando for their country under their GB kit.
  14. (intransitive) To rely, depend (on).
    • 2006 March 9, “Grappling with deficits”, in The Economist:
      With so much riding on the new payments system, it was thus a grave embarrassment to the government when the tariff for 2006-07 had to be withdrawn for amendments towards the end of February.
  15. (intransitive) Of clothing: to rest (in a given way on a part of the body).
    • 2001 September 16, Jenny Eliscu, “Oops...she's doing it again”, in The Observer:
      She's wearing inky-blue jeans that ride low enough on her hips that her aquamarine thong peeks out teasingly at the back.
  16. (lacrosse) To play defense on the defensemen or midfielders, as an attackman.
  17. To manage insolently at will; to domineer over.
  18. (surgery) To overlap (each other); said of bones or fractured fragments.
  19. (radio, television, transitive) To monitor (some component of an audiovisual signal) in order to keep it within acceptable bounds.
    vocal riding
    • 2006, Simran Kohli, Radio Jockey Handbook:
      The board operator normally watches the meter scale marked for modulation percentage, riding the gain to bring volume peaks into the 85% to 100% range.
    • 2017, Michael O'Connell, Turn Up the Volume: A Down and Dirty Guide to Podcasting, page 22:
      “You don't want them riding the volume knob, so that's why you learn how to do your levels properly to make the whole thing transparent for the listener. []
  20. (music) In jazz, to play in a steady rhythmical style.
    • 2000, Max Harrison, Charles Fox, Eric Thacker, The Essential Jazz Records: Modernism to postmodernism, page 238:
      The quintet in Propheticape muses out-of-measured-time until Holland leads it into swift, riding jazz.

Synonyms

Derived terms

With this term at the beginning
With this term at the end or middle

Translations

Noun

ride (plural rides)

  1. An instance of riding.
    Can I have a ride on your bike?
    We took the horses for an early-morning ride in the woods.
    go for a quick ride
  2. (informal) A vehicle.
    That's a nice ride; what did it cost?
    pimp my ride
  3. An amusement ridden at a fair or amusement park.
    the kids went on all the rides
  4. A lift given to someone in another person's vehicle.
    Can you give me a ride home?
  5. (UK) A road or avenue cut in a wood, for riding; a bridleway or other wide country path.
    • 2015, Roderic Jeffries, Death in the Coverts, →ISBN:
      "Could you see the ride that goes down and round the point of the woods...?"
      "I could see down it till it went round the corner."...
      "...Then Mr Fawcett comes down the ride, rushing his chair along like it was a racing car... He carried on down the ride. Next thing Miss Harmsworth comes down the ride from the field..."
  6. (UK, dialect, archaic) A saddle horse.
    • 1904, Country Gentleman:
      Stella, who in her day was a beautiful ride.
  7. (Ireland) A person (or sometimes a thing or a place) that is visually attractive.
    • 2007 July 14, Michael O'Neill, “Re: More mouthy ineffectual poseurs...[was Re: Live Earth - One Of The Most Important Events On This Particular Planet - don't let SCI distract you”, in soc.culture.irish (Usenet):
      Absolutely, and I agree about Madonna. An absolute ride *still*. :-) M.
  8. (jazz) A steady rhythmical style.
    She's playing cheerful music on the ride cymbal!
  9. (figurative) A wild, bewildering experience of some duration.
    That story was a ride from start to finish.
    • 2002, “Manila”, performed by Seelenluft ft. Michael Smith:
      We all started to dance / Without wearing no life vest / We all started to dance / It was quite a ride
  10. (slang, vulgar) An act of sexual intercourse.
    Synonyms: shag, fuck, cop, bang
    I gave my boyfriend a ride before breakfast.
  11. A district inspected by an excise officer.
  12. (printing, historical) A fault caused by the overlapping of leads, etc.

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

Danish

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Faroese ryta, rita or Icelandic rita, from Old Norse rytr, derived from the verb rjóta (to cry), from the verb Proto-Germanic *reutaną.

Noun

ride c (singular definite riden, plural indefinite rider)

  1. black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla)
Inflection

Etymology 2

From Old Norse ríða, from Proto-Germanic *rīdaną, cognate with English ride, German reiten.

Verb

ride (past tense red, past participle redet, c reden, definite or plural redne)

  1. to ride (to sit on the back of an animal)
  2. (slang) to have intercourse with (sex position with one person sitting on top of another like on a horse)
Conjugation
Derived terms

French

Etymology

From rider.

Pronunciation

Noun

ride f (plural rides)

  1. wrinkle, line (on face etc.)
  2. ripple
  3. ridge

Verb

ride

  1. inflection of rider:
    1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
    2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

Anagrams

Galician

Verb

ride

  1. second-person plural imperative of rir

Italian

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈri.de/
  • Rhymes: -ide
  • Hyphenation: rì‧de

Verb

ride

  1. third-person singular present indicative of ridere

Anagrams

Latin

Verb

rīdē

  1. second-person singular present active imperative of rīdeō

Middle English

Verb

ride

  1. Alternative form of riden

North Frisian

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old Frisian rīda, from Proto-West Germanic *rīdan. Cognates include West Frisian ride.

Pronunciation

Verb

ride

  1. (Mooring) to ride (on a horse, mount)

Conjugation

Norwegian Bokmål

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old Norse ríða.

Verb

ride (imperative rid, present tense rider, passive rides, simple past red or rei, past participle ridd, present participle ridende)

  1. to ride (e.g. a horse)

Derived terms

References

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

ride (present tense rid, past tense reid, past participle ride or ridd or ridt, present participle ridande, imperative rid)

  1. Alternative form of rida

Derived terms

Portuguese

Verb

ride

  1. second-person plural imperative of rir

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian rīda, from Proto-West Germanic *rīdan.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈridə/, /ˈriːdə/

Verb

ride

  1. (intransitive) to ride
  2. (transitive, intransitive) to drive

Inflection

Strong class 1
infinitive ride
3rd singular past ried
past participle riden
infinitive ride
long infinitive riden
gerund riden n
auxiliary hawwe
indicative present tense past tense
1st singular ryd ried
2nd singular rydst riedst
3rd singular rydt ried
plural ride rieden
imperative ryd
participles ridend riden

Further reading

  • ride (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011