ENGLISH
REFERENCE

wade

v.
B2 Upper Intermediate US //ˈweɪd// UK //wˈeɪd// wade Archaic Informal

v. to walk through water that is not very deep. You can also use it to describe working through a lot of difficult information or paperwork.

v. to walk with effort through water or another liquid substance that provides resistance. Often used figuratively to describe progressing through a large volume of tedious material.


SIMPLE

The children love to wade in the shallow pool.

CONTEXTUAL

We had to wade through the flooded street to reach the dry sidewalk on the other side.

COMPLEX

The researcher spent months having to wade through thousands of archived documents to find a single mention of the lost ship's manifest.

Origin

From Old English wæd (“a ford”).

Usage

The verb is intransitive when describing the physical act of walking in water, but takes the preposition 'through' when describing the material being navigated.

© 2026 English Reference