Word.ws English Dictionary

reed

/ɹiːd/

reed noun: any of various types of tall stiff perennial grass-like plants growing together in groups near water. Also the abbreviation of reed instrument.

reed: any of various types of tall stiff perennial grass-like plants growing together in groups near water
Image: Roger Cornfoot, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

reed (countable and uncountable, plural reeds)

  1. (countable) Any of various types of tall stiff perennial grass-like plants growing together in groups near water.
  2. (countable) The hollow stem of these plants.
  3. (countable) Part of an aerophone musical instrument, comprising a thin piece of wood or metal, which vibrates to produce sound when air passes through it.
  4. (countable) A comb-like part of a beater for beating the weft when weaving.
    • Coordinate term: sley
  5. (countable, historical) A piece of whalebone or similar for stiffening the skirt or waist of a woman's dress.
  6. (uncountable) Reeding.
  7. A tube containing the train of powder for igniting the charge in blasting.
  8. Straw prepared for thatching a roof.
  9. (obsolete, poetic) A missile weapon.
  10. (archaic) A measuring rod.
    1. (archaic) A Babylonian unit of measure the length of a reed, equal to half a nindan, or six cubits.

Verb

reed (third-person singular simple present reeds, present participle reeding, simple past and past participle reeded)

  1. (transitive) To thatch.
  2. To mill or mint with reeding.

Noun (2)

reed (plural reeds)

  1. (Scotland, UK, dialectal) The fourth stomach of a ruminant; rennet.

Proper noun capitalized: Reed

Reed (usually uncountable, plural Reeds)

  1. (usually) A surname from Old English, a spelling variant of Reid.
  2. (usually) A unisex given name transferred from the surname.
  3. (usually) A village and civil parish in North Hertfordshire district, Hertfordshire, England (OS grid ref TL3636).
  4. (usually) A town in Desha County, Arkansas.
  5. (usually) An unincorporated community in Henderson County, Kentucky.
  6. (usually) A township in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.
  7. (usually) An unincorporated community in Freeman, Crawford County, Wisconsin.

Also used as

reed is also the abbreviation of reed instrument.

reed is also the simple past and past participle of ree.

reed meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Kannada

reed in Hindi

रीड

reed in Urdu

ریڑ

reed in Bengali

রিড

reed in Kannada

ರೀಡ್
More languagesFewer languages
reed in Punjabi
ਰਿੱਡ, ਰੀਡ
reed in Gujarati
રીડ
reed in Assamese
ইকৰ ikor
reed in Nepali
रिड
reed in Tagalog
tambo
reed in Arabic
قَصَبَة qaṣaba, بُوصَة būṣa
reed in Malay
lidah serunai
reed in Indonesian
alang, alang-alang
reed in Persian
نی ney, غرو qarv, کلک kelk
reed in Thai
กก gòk
reed in Vietnamese
sậy

Examples of reed in a sentence

  • To me, the bassoon is the greatest of the double reeds.
  • She wove a beautiful basket out of reeds.
  • Playing wind instruments involves tonguing on the reed or mouthpiece.

All 40 example sentences with reed

Forms of reed

Noun
pluralreeds
alternative formread
alternative form (obsolete)reede
Verb
third-person singular presentreeds
present participlereeding
past participlereeded
pastreeded
Proper noun
pluralReeds

Plural of reed: reeds

Origin of reed

From Middle English red, from Old English hrēod, from Proto-West Germanic *hreud (“reed”), of uncertain origin. Cognates Cognate with North Frisian raid (“reed”), Saterland Frisian Räit (“reed”), West Frisian reid (“reed”), Dutch riet (“reed”), German Reet, Ried (“reed”). No cognates in North Germanic languages, but the existence of an otherwise unattested Gothic *𐌷𐍂𐌹𐌿𐌳 (*hriud) was supposed by the brothers Grimm. They also theorised that the word may have a relation to the retas mentioned in Noctes Atticae (Aulus Gellius). The measuring reed sense is the translation of Akkadian qanûm ("cane") used in the Bible and elsewhere.

From Middle English reden, from the noun (see above).

See ree.

Words formed from reed

Phrases with reed

26 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with reed

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about reed

What does reed mean?
Reed means any of various types of tall stiff perennial grass-like plants growing together in groups near water.
What is reed in Hindi?
Reed in Hindi is रीड. See Reed meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is reed?
Reed can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce reed?
Reed is pronounced /ɹiːd/.
What is the plural of reed?
The plural of reed is reeds.

Words near reed in the dictionary

  1. reechoed
  2. reechoes
  3. reechoing
  4. reechos
  5. reechy
  6. reed
  7. reed bed
  8. reed beds
  9. reed bunting
  10. reed buntings
  11. reed cat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reed (page history and authors); Reed (page history and authors); reed (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); reed (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); reed (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); reed (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); reed (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); reed (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); reed (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-reed.ogg.

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