rode

Formsrodes, roding, roded

Pluralrodes

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense of ride.

   She rode the early train into the city for years.

   The messenger rode through the night to deliver the news.

   Note

   A simple past that stands on its own, with no helper verb: she rode, they rode all night. Once have or had appears, standard English switches to ridden, so write had ridden, not had rode. That switch is what separates this form from the nonstandard participle. The same spelling also belongs to an unrelated bird verb whose own past is roded.

2. 2
   verbnonstandard

   Past participle of ride. Nonstandard and colloquial; the standard form is ridden.

   She had rode the same route to work for years before the line closed.

   They claimed they had rode farther than anyone else that season.

   Note

   Have rode is older than it looks. John Baxter writes "many a journey you have rode" in 1662, and Francis Asbury's journal notes "we have rode but eight miles this day." It now survives as colloquial, nonstandard speech, which is why Eric Bogosian puts "I have rode with the Kings" in the mouth of a monologue speaker. In careful writing, use ridden.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The line or chain running from a vessel to its anchor.

   The crew paid out additional rode to improve the anchor's hold.

   Chafing wore through the rode where it passed over the bow roller.

   Similarline, cable, warp

   Note

   A sailor's word for the whole connection to the anchor, whether it is rope, chain or a mix of both. It takes the verbs of line-handling: you pay out more rode, haul it in, or check where it chafes at the bow. How much is let out, called the scope, decides whether the anchor sets and holds against wind and current.

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To perform a male woodcock's mating flight, usually at twilight, calling while flying along a woodland edge and back again.

   On calm April evenings, male woodcock rode low over the forest edge, grunting and chirping.

   Birders gather at dusk to watch woodcock rode along the woodland margins.

   Note

   A naturalist's verb with its own regular forms: rodes, roding, roded. Birders speak of a woodcock roding over the forest edge at dusk. Despite the spelling, it has nothing to do with the past of ride, because the two come from separate origins. H. L. Brækstad's 1886 translation of Asbjørnsen's Folk and Fairy Tales spells it roading: "hear the woodcock, how he is roading."

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