Word.ws English Dictionary

rode the rods

rode the rods is the simple past of ride the rods.

Meaning of ride the rods

Verb

ride the rods (third-person singular simple present rides the rods, present participle riding the rods, simple past rode the rods, past participle ridden the rods)

  1. (US, slang) To travel illicitly by clinging to the supporting rods under a freight train.
    • And a dangerous extracurricular activity had helped turn his muscles to iron: he “rode the rods” with other boys, clinging to the underframework of Union Pacific freight cars rumbling through Abilene.1970, Colonel Red Reeder, Dinosaurs A to Z, published 2008

Questions about rode the rods

What is rode the rods the simple past of?
Rode the rods is the simple past of ride the rods.

Words near rode the rods in the dictionary

  1. rode the fair
  2. rode the high horse
  3. rode the pine
  4. rode the rail
  5. rode the rails
  6. rode the rods
  7. rode the short bus
  8. rode the three-legged mare
  9. rode the tiger
  10. rode the wave
  11. rode to hounds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rode the rods (page history and authors); ride the rods (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: “rode the rods.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rode_the_rods. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.