read

/ɹiːd//ɹid/

read verb: to look at and interpret letters or other information that is written. Also the simple past and past participle of read.

Image: Franz Eybl, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

read (third-person singular simple present reads, present participle reading, simple past read, past participle read or (archaic, dialectal) readen)

(intransitive, transitive) To look at and interpret letters or other information that is written.
- Have you read this book?
- He doesn’t like to read.
Synonyms:

interpret, make out, make sense of, understand, scan
1. (ergative, intransitive, transitive) To be understood or physically read in a specific way.
  - Arabic reads right to left.
  - That sentence reads strangely.
2. (intransitive, metonymically, transitive) To read a work or works written by the named author.
  - At the moment I'm reading Milton.
(intransitive, transitive) To speak aloud words or other information that is written. (often construed with a to phrase or an indirect object)
- He read us a passage from his new book.
- All right, class, who wants to read next?
Synonyms:

read aloud, read out, read out loud, speak
(transitive) To interpret, or infer a meaning, significance, thought, intention, etc., from.
- She read my mind and promptly rose to get me a glass of water.
- I can read his feelings in his face.
To consist of certain text.
- On the door hung a sign that read "No admittance".
Synonyms:

say, run
(ergative) To substitute a corrected piece of text in place of an erroneous one; used to introduce an emendation of a text.
- In Livy, it is nearly certain that for Pylleon we should read Pteleon, as this place is mentioned in connection with Antron.1832, John Lemprière et al., Bibliotheca classica, Seventh Edition, W. E. Dean, page 263
- The sign of coefficient a(3) in the general formula of Table 2 should be plus instead of minus. Thus, the formula should read […]2001, Astronomy & Astrophysics, volume 376, issue 3, p. 1039
Synonyms:

sic pro
1. (broadly, ergative, humorous, imperative, ironic, usually) Used to introduce a blunter, actually intended meaning.
  - Our school focuses primarily on the liberal arts (read "useless degrees").
  - Eliminate illogical (read: stupid) answer choices.2009, Suzee Vlk et al., The GRE Test for Dummies, 6th edition, Wiley Publishing, →ISBN, page 191
(transitive) To be able to hear what another person is saying over a radio connection.
- Do you read me?
- Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?1968, Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey, spoken by Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea)
Synonyms:

copy, hear, receive
(transitive) To observe and comprehend (a displayed signal).
- A repeater signal may be used where the track geometry makes the main signal difficult to read from a distance.
(Commonwealth, transitive, except Scotland) To study (a subject) at a high level, especially at university.
- I am reading theology at university.
- Crabbe wanted him to go to England, to read for a degree there.1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 94
Synonyms:

learn, study
(transitive) To fetch data from (a storage medium, etc.).
- to read a hard disk
- to read a port
(transitive) To recognise (someone) as being transgender.
- Every time I go outside, I worry that someone will read me.
Synonyms:

clock
(at first especially in the black LGBTQ community) To call attention to the flaws of (someone) in a playful, taunting, or insulting way.
- I've seen drags "read" an unattractive transsexual until she was almost in tears.1976 August 7, Tommi Avicolli, “The Politics of Camp”, in Gay Community News, page 9
- Snapping, we are told, comes from reading, or exposing hidden flaws in a person's life, and out of reading comes shade […]1997, Framing Culture: Africanism, Sexuality and Performance, page 186 (also discussing Paris is Burning)
(go) To imagine sequences of potential moves and responses without actually placing stones.

Show 4 more meaningsShow fewer meanings

(obsolete) To think, believe; to consider (that).
- But now, faire Ladie, comfort to you make, / And read[…] / That short reuenge the man may ouertake […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
(obsolete) To advise; to counsel. See rede.
- [T]herfore / I red the [thee] / gete the [thee] to Gods vvorde ãd [and] therby trye all doctrine and agenſt that receave nothinge.1528 October 12 (Gregorian calendar), William Tyndale, “The .IIIJ. Senses of yͤ Scripture”, in The Obediẽce of a Christen Man […], [Antwerp]: [Johannes Hoochstraten], →OCLC, folio cxlvi, verso
- This is the wandring wood, this Errours den, / A monster vile, whom God and man does hate: / Therefore I read beware.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 6
(obsolete) To tell; to declare; to recite.
- But read how art thou named, and of what kin.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
To predict another player's actions before they perform them or before they are apparent.

Noun

read (plural reads)

A reading or an act of reading, especially of an actor's part of a play or a piece of stored data.
- I had a read of the evening papers.
- One newswoman here lets magazines for a penny a read.1879, Frederick James Furnivall, letter to the editor of "The Spectator"
(in-compounds) Something to be read; a written work.
- His thrillers are always a gripping read.
A person's interpretation or impression of something.
- What's your read of the current political situation?
- On the quarterback's first read of the situation, his target receiver was not open.
(at first especially in the black LGBTQ community) An instance of reading (“calling attention to someone's flaws; a taunt or insult”).
- [As] Corey points out, "if you and I are both black queens then we can't call each other black queens because that's not a read. That's a [fact]."1997, Framing Culture: Africanism, Sexuality and Performance, page 186 (also discussing Paris is Burning)
- Like most African-American women, Pearlie Mae uses snapping in many of the same ways that black gay men use it: to accentuate a read.2003, Philip Auslander, Performance: Media and technology, page 185
The identification of a specific sequence of genes in a genome or bases in a nucleic acid string.

Proper noun capitalized: Read

Read

A surname from Old English, a less common spelling variant of Reid.
A male given name transferred from the surname.
A village and civil parish in Ribble Valley district, Lancashire, England (OS grid ref SD7634).
A township in Clayton County, Iowa, United States.
A township in Butler County, Nebraska, United States.
An unincorporated community in Randolph County, West Virginia, United States.

Also used as

read is also the simple past and past participle of read.

read meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

read in Hindi

to look at and interpret letters or other information: पढ़ना paṛhnā
to speak aloud words or other information that is written: पढ़ना paṛhnā
to make a study of: पढ़ना paṛhnā
a reading or an act of reading: पढ़ना paṛhnā

read in Tamil

to look at and interpret letters or other information: வாசி vāci, படி paṭi
to speak aloud words or other information that is written: வாசி vāci, ஓது ōtu, படி paṭi
to interpret or infer a meaning, significance, thought, intention, etc. from — see also suss out: படி paṭi
to consist of certain text: வாசிப்பு vācippu

read in Marathi

to look at and interpret letters or other information: वाचणे vācṇe

read in Urdu

to look at and interpret letters or other information: پَڑْھنا paṛhnā
to speak aloud words or other information that is written: پَڑْھنا paṛhnā

More languagesFewer languages

read in Bengali: পড়া poṛa
read in Telugu: చదువు caduvu, వల్లెవేయు vallevēyu
read in Malayalam: വായിക്കുക vāyikkuka, വായന vāyana, പഠിക്കുക paṭhikkuka
read in Kannada: ಓದು ōdu
read in Punjabi: ਵਾਚਣਾ vācṇā
read in Gujarati: વાંચવું vā̃cvũ
read in Odia: ପଢିବା paḍhibā
read in Sanskrit: पठ् paṭh, पठति paṭhati
read in Sinhala: කියවනවා kiyawanawā
read in Assamese: পঢ় porh
read in Nepali: पढ्नु paḍhnu, वाचन गर्नु vācan garnu
read in Pashto: لوستل lwastǝl
read in Tagalog: bumasa, basahin, magbasa, aralin
read in Arabic: قَرَأَ qaraʔa, قرا gira, قَرَا gara, قِري giri
read in Malay: baca
read in Indonesian: baca, dibaca, berbunyi, mengerti
read in Persian: خْوَانْدَن xwāndan, خوَانْدَن xāndan, خوانْدَن xândan, خونْدَن xundan
read in Thai: อ่าน àan, อ่านออกเสียง àan ɔ̀ɔk sǐiang
read in Vietnamese: đọc, viết, ghi, chỉ
read in Myanmar: ဖတ် hpat, စာဖတ် cahpat
Sindhi: پڙهڻ parhanu
Kashmiri: پَرُن parun

Examples of read in a sentence

to read the keyboard
She reads Playgirl magazine, goes to a male-strip joint and then complains about sexual harassment on the job.1982, Robert M. Evenson, “"Liberated" Woman"”, in The Cincinnati Enquirer:
On this occasion he was carrying in his right hand a copy of the English-language China News, an odd touch because the President did not read English.1983, James C. H. Shen, “A Round of Calls”, in Robert Myers, editor, The U.S. & Free China: How the U.S. Sold Out Its Ally, Washington...
Place-names throughout the 4,000-mile-long passage read like a roster of those who challenged its icy labyrinths of more than 18,000 islands—Baffin, Hudson, Davis, Foxe, Parry, Bylot, Sverdrup.1989 May, Jeff MacInnis, “Braving the Northwest Passage”, in National Geographic, volume 175, number 5, page 586:
He never read me any of his manuscripts, […] and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned.1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company...

All 40 example sentences with read

Synonyms of read

interpret
make out
make sense of
understand
scan
read aloud
read out
read out loud
speak
say

8 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of read

Forms of read

Verb
third-person singular present	reads
present participle	reading
past	read
past participle	read
past participle (archaic, dialectal)	readen
first-person singular past (archaic)	redd
second-person singular present (archaic)	readest
second-person singular past (archaic)	redd
second-person singular past (archaic)	readst
third-person singular present (archaic)	readeth
third-person singular past (archaic)	redd
plural past (archaic)	redd
past subjunctive (archaic)	redd
past participle (archaic)	readen
Noun
plural	reads

Past tense of read: read

Plural of read: reads

Origin of read

From Middle English reden, from Old English rǣdan (“to counsel, advise, consult; interpret, read”), from Proto-West Germanic *rādan, from Proto-Germanic *rēdaną (“advise, counsel”), from Proto-Indo-European *Hreh₁dʰ- (“to arrange”). Cognate with Scots rede, red (“to advise, counsel, decipher, read”), Saterland Frisian räide (“to advise, counsel”), West Frisian riede (“to advise, counsel”), Dutch raden (“to advise; guess”), German raten (“to advise; guess”), Danish råde (“to advise”), Swedish råda (“to advise, counsel”), Persian رده (rade, “to order, to arrange, class”). In West Germanic the verb had a sense “interpret”, which developed further into “interpret letters” in English and “interpret by intuition, guess” on the continent. Compare rede.

From Middle English redde (simple past), red, rad (past participle), from Old English rǣdde (simple past), (ġe)rǣded (past participle), conjugations of rǣdan (“to read”); see above.

English and Scottish surname, variant of Reed.

Words formed from read

Phrases with read

43 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with read

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about read

What does read mean?: Read means to look at and interpret letters or other information that is written.
What is read in Hindi?: Read in Hindi is पढ़ना (paṛhnā). See Read meaning in Hindi.
How do you use read in a sentence?: to read the keyboard
What part of speech is read?: Read can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce read?: Read is pronounced /ɹiːd/ (UK).
What is the past tense of read?: The past tense of read is read.

Words near read in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: read (page history and authors); Read (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-to read.ogg, en-us-read.ogg.

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