Redd
name, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A spawning nest made by a fish.
"2007, Michael Klesius, Fishes' Riches, National Geographic (March 2007), 32, A female chinook salmon digs her redd, or nest, prior to spawning in Oregon's John Day River."
- 1 To free from entanglement. obsolete
- 2 To clean, tidy up, to put in order. Pennsylvania, transitive
"I've got to redd the place before your mother gets back."
- 3 simple past and past participle of rede form-of, participle, past
- 4 To free from embarrassment. obsolete
- 5 simple past and past participle of read form-of, obsolete, participle, past
"The Works of John Knox, 1841"
Show 5 more definitions
- 6 To fix boundaries. Northern-England, Scotland
- 7 To comb hair. Northern-England, Scotland
- 8 To separate combatants. Northern-England, Scotland
- 9 To settle, usually a quarrel. Northern-England, Scotland
- 10 To tidy up, clear away. Northern-England, Scotland
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"I've got to redd the place before your mother gets back."
Etymology
Fusion of Middle English redden (“to save, rescue, deliver, rid, free, clear”), from Old English hreddan (“to save, deliver, recover, rescue”), from Proto-Germanic *hradjaną and Middle English reden (“to clean up, clear”), from Old English ġerǣdan (“to put in order, arrange, prepare”), from Proto-Germanic *garaidijaną (“to arrange”). More at rid, ready.
From Middle English, from Old Norse ryðja, Middle Low German, compare Dutch redden. In modern use probably actually a back-formation from ready.
Origin obscure, possibly from the act of the fish scooping, clearing out a spawning place, see redd above.
From the archaic verb rede or read.
Related phrases
More for "redd"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.