rædan

• rēdan

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:

• Proto-West Germanic *rādan, from Proto-Germanic *rēdaną (“to advise”, strong verb)
• Proto-West Germanic *raidijan, from Proto-Germanic *raidijaną (“to make ready”, weak verb).

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈræː.dɑn/

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

• 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.

Strong class 7 conjugation:

Weak class 1 conjugation:

• Middle English: reden, readen, redden, riden, raden, ruden, redan, readan, ræden, rædon (Early Middle English)
  • English: read, rede
  • Scots: rede
  • Yola: reade