# rid

Pronunciation: say "RID" /ɹɪd/

## Verb

1. To free oneself, another person, or a place from an annoyance or hindrance; followed by of.
   - Simple: To make a person or place free from something annoying or unwanted.
   - _The new mayor promised to rid the city of corruption._
   - _After years of clutter, she finally rid the garage of old furniture._
2. To remove someone or something annoying, troublesome, or unwanted; followed by away, from, or out of.
   - Simple: To take something annoying or unwanted away from a place or person.
   - _The treaty aimed to rid foreign troops from the border region._
   - _Volunteers rid the invasive vines out of the nature preserve last spring._
3. To free or release someone or something, or to rescue or save them; often followed by from, of, or out of.
   - Simple: To set someone or something free, or to save them from harm.
   - _Only a swift ransom could rid the captives from the bandits' camp._
   - _The pardon rid the old soldier of every charge against him._
4. To put a place, such as a room or a table, in order; to clear or tidy; often followed by up. *(dialectal, US)*
   - Simple: To make a room or table neat and clean.
   - _Grandma always told us to rid up the front room before visitors arrived._
   - _He rid the workbench so his father could find his tools._

## Verb

5. To clear a place or way; especially, to clear land of trees, undergrowth, and similar growth. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: To clear a place, especially to clear land of trees and bushes.
   - _Each spring the tenants would rid another strip of forest for pasture._
   - _By 1750 the family had rid most of the hillside and put it under plow._
6. To clear ground, or some other place, of whatever covers or obstructs it. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: To work at clearing land or some other open place.
   - _The new tenants would rid until dusk, burning brush as they went._
   - _The crews rid along the riverbank for weeks before the road was finally cut._
7. To remove obstacles or refuse from a place; to clean or clear out; sometimes followed by up; specifically, to clear or empty the stomach. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: To clean a place by taking away trash and things in the way.
8. To destroy or kill someone; sometimes followed by away. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: To kill a person, or to destroy someone completely.
9. To eradicate something completely; to root out or uproot; followed by up. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: To pull something up by the roots and destroy it completely.
   - _Last winter the hedgers rid up the old thorn bushes along the lane._
   - _It took two seasons to rid up the bracken from the upper pasture._
10. To complete or get through a task or piece of work; sometimes followed by away or off. *(archaic, Shropshire)*
   - Simple: To finish a job or get through a piece of work.
   - _A practiced crew could rid the whole harvest in two weeks._
   - _She rid off her spinning early and joined the others at the fair._
11. To vomit, or to clear one's throat. *(archaic, West Midlands)*
   - Simple: To empty the stomach, or to clear the throat.
   - _The patient rid violently after taking the physician's draft._
   - _The old preacher would rid loudly before beginning his sermon._
12. To deprive or strip someone, or oneself, of something. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To take something away from a person. Used with the word of.
   - _Robbers on the highway rid travelers of their purses and rings._
   - _One bad harvest could rid a farmer of everything he had saved._
13. To settle or bring to an end a disagreement or dispute. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To end an argument or disagreement between people.
   - _The two families asked the parson to rid their quarrel over the boundary stone._
   - _In his years as magistrate he rid countless disputes between neighbors._
14. To dismiss an attendant who has been waiting on someone; used reflexively, to withdraw from someone's presence after waiting on them. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To send away someone who has been serving or helping a person.
   - _The duke rid his attendants before speaking a word of the rebellion._
   - _Having dressed the king, the chamberlains would rid themselves from the royal bedchamber._
15. To get out of or away from a place; to escape from it. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: To get away from a place or escape from it.
   - _The prisoners hoped to rid the castle before the guard changed at midnight._
   - _Under cover of fog, the smugglers rid the harbor without being seen._
16. Of work, to reach completion; to get done. *(obsolete, Northern England)*
   - Simple: To get finished or done. Used about work.
   - _The plowing will rid before sundown if the weather holds._
   - _Once the neighbors came to help, the threshing rid in half the usual time._
19. Past tense and past participle of ride. Obsolete and dialectal; the standard forms are rode and ridden. *(obsolete, Northern England)* — simple past and past participle of ride
   - Simple: Past tense and past participle of ride. An old form. Today people say rode or ridden.

## Adjective

17. Chiefly of a place, cleared of clutter or obstructions; tidied up. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Cleared and tidy. Mostly used about a place.
   - _By evening the threshing floor stood rid and swept for the next day's work._
   - _A rid workshop, the old joiner said, was half the job done._
18. Used as the second element of a compound to mean full of, or dominated, oppressed or plagued by. *(obsolete, Northern England)*
   - Simple: Full of something bad, or troubled by it. Used at the end of joined words, like fever-rid.
20. Of a horse, ridden and broken to the saddle; used only in the compound well-rid. *(obsolete, Northern England)*
   - Simple: Describes a horse trained to carry a person in a saddle, used only in the word 'well-rid'.
   - _The dealer said the gray mare was well-rid and gentle._
   - _A well-rid horse will answer the lightest pull on the rein._

## Noun

21. Progress made in a task; also, speed or pace. *(obsolete, Northern England)*
   - Simple: Progress in a piece of work, or the speed of it.
   - _The mowers made good rid through the lower meadow that morning._
   - _At such rid, the harvest would be in the barn before Sunday._
22. Loose earth, rubble, and other surface material at a quarry that must be cleared away before stone can be extracted. *(obsolete, Northern England)*
   - Simple: Loose dirt and broken rock that workers must clear away before they can dig out stone.
   - _The foreman set two laborers to carting away the rid before the cutters arrived._
   - _Beneath three feet of rid lay a clean bed of limestone._

## Origin

**Meanings 1–17, 21–22** — The verb comes from Middle English "ridden" (to clear a place, to free or relieve someone), probably from Old English *ryddan (to clear), tracing back through Proto-Germanic *riudijaną to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to clear land." It was probably also influenced by Middle English words meaning "to rescue, deliver" and "to arrange, prepare." The adjective and noun come from the verb.
**Meanings 18–20** — This adjective is derived from "rid," the obsolete past participle form of the verb "ride."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/rid (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).