What is "rid"

Ride \Ride\, v. i. [imp. Rode (r[=o]d) ( Rid [r[i^]d], archaic); p. p. Ridden( Rid, archaic); p. pr. & vb. n. Riding.] [AS. r[=i]dan; akin to LG. riden, D. rijden, G. reiten, OHG. r[=i]tan, Icel. r[=i][eth]a, Sw. rida, Dan. ride; cf. L. raeda a carriage, which is from a Celtic word. Cf. Road.]

1. To be carried on the back of an animal, as a horse.

   To-morrow, when ye riden by the way.
   --Chaucer.

   Let your master ride on before, and do you gallop after him.
   --Swift.

2. To be borne in a carriage; as, to ride in a coach, in a car, and the like. See Synonym, below.

   The richest inhabitants exhibited their wealth, not by riding in gilden carriages, but by walking the streets with trains of servants.
   --Macaulay.

3. To be borne or in a fluid; to float; to lie.

   Men once walked where ships at anchor ride.
   --Dryden.

4. To be supported in motion; to rest.

   Strong as the exletree On which heaven rides.
   --Shak.

   On whose foolish honesty My practices ride easy!
   --Shak.

5. To manage a horse, as an equestrian.

   He rode, he fenced, he moved with graceful ease.
   --Dryden.

6. To support a rider, as a horse; to move under the saddle; as, a horse rides easy or hard, slow or fast. To ride easy (Naut.), to lie at anchor without violent pitching or straining at the cables. To ride hard (Naut.), to pitch violently. To ride out.

   1. To go upon a military expedition. [Obs.]
      --Chaucer.

   2. To ride in the open air. [Colloq.]

      To ride to hounds, to ride behind, and near to, the hounds in hunting.

      Syn: Drive.

      Usage: Ride, Drive. Ride originally meant (and is so used throughout the English Bible) to be carried on horseback or in a vehicle of any kind. At present in England, drive is the word applied in most cases to progress in a carriage; as, a drive around the park, etc.; while ride is appropriated to progress on a horse. Johnson seems to sanction this distinction by giving ``to travel on horseback'' as the leading sense of ride; though he adds ``to travel in a vehicle'' as a secondary sense. This latter use of the word still occurs to some extent; as, the queen rides to Parliament in her coach of state; to ride in an omnibus.

      ``Will you ride over or drive?'' said Lord Willowby to his quest, after breakfast that morning.
      --W. Black.

Rid \Rid\, imp. & p. p. of Ride, v. i. [Archaic]

He rid to the end of the village, where he alighted.
--Thackeray.

Rid \Rid\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Rid or Ridded; p. pr. & vb. n. Ridding.] [OE. ridden, redden, AS. hreddan to deliver, liberate; akin to D. & LG. redden, G. retten, Dan. redde, Sw. r["a]dda, and perhaps to Skr. ?rath to loosen.]

1. To save; to rescue; to deliver; -- with out of. [Obs.]

   Deliver the poor and needy; rid them out of the hand of the wicked.
   --Ps. lxxxii. 4.

2. To free; to clear; to disencumber; -- followed by of. ``Rid all the sea of pirates.''
   --Shak.

   In never ridded myself of an overmastering and brooding sense of some great calamity traveling toward me.
   --De Quincey.

3. To drive away; to remove by effort or violence; to make away with; to destroy. [Obs.]

   I will red evil beasts out of the land.
   --Lev. xxvi. 6.

   Death's men, you have rid this sweet young prince!
   --Shak.

4. To get over; to dispose of; to dispatch; to finish. [R.] ``Willingness rids way.''
   --Shak.

   Mirth will make us rid ground faster than if thieves were at our tails.
   --J. Webster.

   To be rid of, to be free or delivered from.

   To get rid of, to get deliverance from; to free one's self from.

c.1200, "clear (a space); set free, save," from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse ryðja (past tense ruddi, past participle ruddr) "to clear (land) of obstructions," from Proto-Germanic *reudijan (cognates: Old High German riuten, German reuten "to clear land," Old Frisian rothia "to clear," Old English -royd "clearing," common in northern place names), from PIE root *reudh- "to clear land." The general sense of "to make (something) free (of something else)" emerged by 1560s. Senses merged somewhat with Northern English, Scottish, and U.S. dialectal redd. To get rid of (something or someone) is from 1660s. Related: Ridden; ridding.

Etymology 1

1. released from an obligation, problem, etc. (usually followed by "of") v

2. To free from something. Etymology 2

   vb. (context obsolete English) (en-past of: ride)

1. v. relieve from; "Rid the the house of pests" [syn: free, disembarrass]

2. [also: ridding, ridded]

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• Radionuclide identification device, a hand-held instrument for the detection and identification of radioactive sources
• Refractive index detector, a type of chromatography detector
• Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, an American Sign Language interpreters' organization
• Relative identifier, a component of Microsoft Windows NT security
• Rivista Italiana Difesa, an Italian magazine related to military and geo-strategic issues
• Robots in Disguise, an English electro band
• Royal Institute Dictionary, a prescriptive dictionary of Thailand