ridding

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of rid.

   The new mayor focused on ridding the city of corruption.

   Ridding the fields of weeds took the farmers most of the summer.

   Note

   The -ing form doubles the d of rid. Because the past tense and past participle stay rid, it is the one form where the stem itself changes. Its usual construction is ridding something of what is unwanted, as in ridding the house of mice. With away, from or out of, the object is the thing removed instead. An older use, clearing land of trees, lies behind the northern word for cleared ground.

2. 2
   noundialectalEnglandNortherncountable

   A tract of former woodland that has been cleared of its trees.

   Each ridding carved from the woodland was carefully marked in the manor's records.

   The settlers turned the broad ridding into wheat fields within a single season.

   Similarclearing, assart

   Note

   A regional word that belongs to northern England. Elsewhere the same cleared ground is called an assart, which carries no local coloring. Ridding is a countable noun (a ridding, each ridding), so it names a particular plot rather than the act of clearing. It suits writing about northern landscapes and their settlement history more than general description.

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