Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A spawning nest made by a fish, especially a salmon or trout.
  • transitive verb To clear.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • See red.
  • noun See red.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A spawning nest made by a fish.
  • verb transitive, Pennsylvania To clean, tidy up, to put in order.
  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of rede.
  • verb obsolete Simple past tense and past participle of read.
  • verb colloquial To put in order; to make tidy; generally with up.
  • verb colloquial To free from entanglement.
  • verb colloquial To free from embarrassment.
  • verb Scotland and Northern England To fix boundaries.
  • verb Scotland and Northern England To comb hair.
  • verb Scotland and Northern England To separate combatants.
  • verb Scotland and Northern England To settle, usually a quarrel.
  • verb obsolete To save, rescue, deliver

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English dialectal redden, variant (probably influenced by Middle English redden, to free (from an encumbrance), rescue) of Middle English riddan, to clear (an area, a way), clear out; see rid.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin obscure, possibly from the act of the fish scooping, clearing out a spawning place, see redd above.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old Norse rydhja, Middle Low German, compare Dutch redden.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the archaic verb rede or read

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Fusion of Middle English redden ("to save, rescue, deliver, rid, free, clear"), from Old English hreddan ("to save, deliver, recover, rescue"), from Proto-Germanic *hradjanan and Middle English reden ("to clean up, clear"), from Old English ġerǣdan ("to put in order, arrange, prepare"), from Proto-Germanic *garaidijanan (“to arrange”). More at rid, ready.

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