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gride

verb /ˈɡɹaɪd/

  1. To pierce (something) with a weapon; to wound, to stab.

    obsolete, transitive

    Where feeling one cloſe couched by her ſide / She lightly lept out of her filed bedd, / And to her weapon ran, in minde to gride / The loathed leachour.

  2. To travel through something.

    intransitive, obsolete

    So ſtoutly he withſtood their ſtrong aſſay, / Till that at laſt, when he aduantage ſpyde, / His poynant ſpeare he thruſt with puiſſant ſway / At proud Cymochles, whiles his ſhield was wyde, / That through his thigh the mortall ſteele did gryde[…]

  3. To produce a grinding or scraping sound.

    The blast of North and East, and ice Makes daggers at the sharpen’d eaves, And bristles all the brakes and thorns To yon hard crescent, as she hangs Above the wood which grides and clangs Its leafless ribs and iron horns Together, in the drifts that pass To darken on the rolling brine That breaks the coast.

    Fiercely flies

Where it comes from

From a metathetic variation of gird (“to strike, smite, upbraid, scold, jibe”), from Middle English girden, gerden (“to strike, thrust, smite”, literally “smite with a rod”), from gerd, yerd (“a rod, yard”). More at yard.

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry gride (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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