Word.ws English Dictionary

abraid

/əˈbɹeɪd/

abraid verb: to wrench (something) out. Also the alternative form of abread.

Verb

abraid (third-person singular simple present abraids, present participle abraiding, simple past and past participle abraided or abraid)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To wrench (something) out.
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To unsheathe a blade, draw a weapon.
  3. (intransitive, obsolete) To wake up.
    • She ferde as she had stert out of a sleep, / Til she out of hire mazednesse abreyde.1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Clerke of Oxenfordes Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of...
    • But when as I did out of ſleepe abray, / I found her not where I her left whyleare, […]1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, page 90
  4. (archaic, intransitive) To spring, start, make a sudden movement.
  5. (intransitive, obsolete, transitive) To shout out.
  6. (obsolete, transitive) To rise in the stomach with nausea.

Also used as

abraid is also the alternative form of abread.

Forms of abraid

third-person singular presentabraids
present participleabraiding
past participleabraided
pastabraided
past participleabraid
pastabraid
alternative formabray

Origin of abraid

From Middle English abraiden, abreiden (“to start up, awake, move, reproach”), from Old English ābreġdan (“to move quickly, vibrate, draw, draw from, remove, unsheath, wrench, pull out, withdraw, take away, draw back, free from, draw up, raise, lift up, start up”), from Proto-Germanic *uz- (“out”) + *bregdaną (“to move, swing”), of uncertain further origin. Equivalent to a- + braid. Related to Dutch breien (“to knit”), German bretten (“to knit”).

From Middle English abrede. More at abread.

Words that rhyme with abraid

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about abraid

What does abraid mean?
Abraid means to wrench (something) out.
What part of speech is abraid?
Abraid is a verb.
How do you pronounce abraid?
Abraid is pronounced /əˈbɹeɪd/.
What is the past tense of abraid?
The past tense of abraid is abraided.

Words near abraid in the dictionary

  1. Abrahamsons
  2. Abrahamyan
  3. Abrahamyans
  4. Abrahan
  5. Abrahart
  6. abraid
  7. abraided
  8. abraiding
  9. abraids
  10. abram
  11. Abram cove

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: abraid (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “abraid.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/abraid. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.