wade

name

Etymology: From Old English wæd (“a ford”).

1. A topographic surname from Old English.
2. A male given name transferred from the surname.

   “In due time, Charles' son was born and, because it was fashionable to name boys after their fathers' commanding officers, he was called Wade Hampton Hamilton.”

3. A system of romanization for the Chinese language based on 19th-century Pekingese pronunciation, worked out by Thomas Wade.
4. A number of places in the United States:
5. A number of places in the United States:
6. A number of places in the United States:
7. A number of places in the United States:
8. A number of places in the United States:

noun

1. Obsolete form of woad.

   “Woad or Wade is a very rich Commodity”

verb

Etymology: From Middle English waden, from Old English wadan, from Proto-West Germanic *wadan, from Proto-Germanic *wadaną (“to go, pass through”), from Proto-Indo-European *weh₂dʰ- (“to go”). Cognates include Saterland Frisian waadje (“to wade”), West Frisian wâdzje (“to wade”), Dutch waden (“to wade”), German Low German waden (“to wade”), German waten (“to wade”), Danish vade (“to wade”), Swedish vada (“to wade”), Icelandic vaða (“to wade”), and Latin vādō (“go, walk; rush”).

1. To walk through water or something that impedes progress.

   “So eagerly the fiend […] / With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, / And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.”

   “After breakfast the men set out to hunt, while the women went to a large pool of warm water covered with a green scum and filled with billions of tadpoles. They waded in to where the water was about a foot deep and lay down in the mud. They remained there from one to two hours and then returned to the cliff.”

2. To progress with difficulty.

   “to wade through a dull book”

   “And wades through fumes, and gropes his way.”

3. To walk through (water or similar impediment); to pass through by wading.

   “wading swamps and rivers”

4. To gleam intermittently through clouds or mist.

   “I saw my Meg come linking o'er the lee; I saw my Meg, but Maggy saw nae me: For yet the sun was wading through the mist, And she was close upon me ere she wist.”

   “... the pale light of a crescent moon wading among the black and lowering clouds.”

5. To enter recklessly.

   “to wade into a fight or a debate”

   “The champ [Alekhine] seems to reel and stagger helplessly. It's an old gag because a blind man can see he ain't glassy-eyed a-tall—but Rodzinsky wades in. 10.QxR”