Word.ws English Dictionary

bade fair

bade fair is the simple past of bid fair.

Meaning of bid fair

Verb

bid fair (third-person singular simple present bids fair, present participle bidding fair, simple past bade fair, past participle bidden fair)

  1. (usually) To have a reasonable claim; to seem likely.
    • A number of the phrases current in St. Giles's Greek bid fair to become legitimatised in the dictionary of this colony: plant, swag, pulling up, and other epithets of the Tom and Jerry school, are established — […]1828, Peter Miller Cunningham, Two Years in New South Wales, page 52

Questions about bade fair

What is bade fair the simple past of?
Bade fair is the simple past of bid fair.

Words near bade fair in the dictionary

  1. baddy two shoes
  2. baddy two-shoes
  3. baddy-two-shoes
  4. bade
  5. bade defiance to
  6. bade fair
  7. Badeau
  8. Badeaus
  9. Badefodiyaa
  10. Badega
  11. Badegas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bade fair (page history and authors); bid fair (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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