read

Webster's Dictionary (1913)

Rennet. See 3d Reed. dialect (England)

Origin: OE. reden, ræden, AS. rǣdan to read, advise, counsel, fr. rǣd advice, counsel, rǣdan (imperf. reord) to advise, counsel, guess; akin to D. raden to advise, G. raten, rathen, Icel. rāða, Goth. rēdan (in comp.), and perh. also to Skr. rādh to succeed. √116. Cf. Riddle.

1. To advise; to counsel. obsolete See Rede.

Therefore, I read thee, get thee to God's word, and thereby try all doctrine.— John Tyndale

2. To interpret; to explain; as, to read a riddle.

3. To tell; to declare; to recite. obsolete

But read how art thou named, and of what kin.— Edmund Spenser

4. To go over, as characters or words, and utter aloud, or recite to one's self inaudibly; to take in the sense of, as of language, by interpreting the characters with which it is expressed; to peruse; as, to read a discourse; to read the letters of an alphabet; to read figures; to read the notes of music, or to read music; to read a book.

Redeth [read ye] the great poet of Itaille.— Geoffrey Chaucer

Well could he rede a lesson or a story.— Geoffrey Chaucer

5. Hence, to know fully; to comprehend.

Who is't can read a woman?— William Shakespeare

6. To discover or understand by characters, marks, features, etc.; to learn by observation.

An armed corse did lie, In whose dead face he read great magnanimity.— Edmund Spenser

Those about her From her shall read the perfect ways of honor.— William Shakespeare

7. To make a special study of, as by perusing textbooks; as, to read theology or law.

To read one's self in, to read aloud the Thirty-nine Articles and the Declaration of Assent, — required of a clergyman of the Church of England when he first officiates in a new benefice.

1. To give advice or counsel. obsolete

2. To tell; to declare. obsolete Edmund Spenser

3. To perform the act of reading; to peruse, or to go over and utter aloud, the words of a book or other like document.

So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense.— Neh. viii. 8.

4. To study by reading; as, he read for the bar.

5. To learn by reading.

I have read of an Eastern king who put a judge to death for an iniquitous sentence.— Jonathan Swift

6. To appear in writing or print; to be expressed by, or consist of, certain words or characters; as, the passage reads thus in the early manuscripts.

7. To produce a certain effect when read; as, that sentence reads queerly.

To read between the lines, to infer something different from what is plainly indicated; to detect the real meaning as distinguished from the apparent meaning.

Origin: AS. rǣd counsel, fr. rǣdan to counsel. See Read, transitive verb

1. Saying; sentence; maxim; hence, word; advice; counsel. See Rede. obsolete

2. Reading. colloquial David Hume

One newswoman here lets magazines for a penny a read.— Fred. James Furnivall

past tense & past participle of Read, transitive & intransitive verb

Instructed or knowing by reading; versed in books; learned.

A poet... well read in Longinus.— Joseph Addison

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54