Word.ws English Dictionary

treader

treader noun: one who treads.

Noun

treader (plural treaders)

  1. One who treads.
  2. (Oxford, UK, slang) A bicycle.
    • Why, he weren’t no more’n knocked offen his treader. An’ now he’ve rid off home on it!1958, Dominic Reeve, Smoke in the Lanes, London: Constable & Co.; republished London: The Country Book Club, 1959, page 82
    • The Royal Academy has just two orange hoops on to which four early-bird visitors can chain their treaders. It is left to the railings outside for the rest.1996 June 6, Ben Summers, “Saddle-weary commuters left with a sore deal”, in The Independent, London, page 6

Forms of treader

pluraltreaders

Origin of treader

From Middle English tredere, equivalent to tread + -er. Cognate with Middle Dutch treder (“treader”), Middle Low German trēdære, trēder (“treader, bellows kicker”), Middle High German tretære, treter (“treader”) (whence German Treter (“old shoe, footballer”)).

Words formed from treader

Questions about treader

What does treader mean?
Treader means one who treads.
What part of speech is treader?
Treader is a noun.
What is the plural of treader?
The plural of treader is treaders.

Words near treader in the dictionary

  1. treaded on someone's corns
  2. treaded softly
  3. treaded the boards
  4. treaded the stage
  5. treaded water
  6. treader
  7. treaders
  8. treadest
  9. treadeth
  10. Treadgold
  11. Treadgolds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: treader (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-treader.wav.

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