read

英文词源

read

read: [OE] In most western European languages, the word for ‘read’ goes back ultimately to a source which meant literally ‘gather, pick up’: French lire, for instance, which comes from Latin legere (source of English legible and collect), and German lesen. English read, however, is an exception. Its underlying meaning is ‘advise, consider’ (it is related to German raten ‘advise’, and a memory of this original sense lives on in the archaic rede ‘advise’, which is essentially the same word as read, and also in unready ‘ill-advised’, the epithet applied to the Anglo-Saxon king Ethelred II), and the sense ‘read’ developed via ‘interpret’ (preserved in the related riddle).
=> riddle

read (v.)

Old English rædan (West Saxon), redan (Anglian) "to advise, counsel, persuade; discuss, deliberate; rule, guide; arrange, equip; forebode; read, explain; learn by reading; put in order" (related to ræd, red "advice"), from Proto-Germanic *redan (cognates: Old Norse raða, Old Frisian reda, Dutch raden, Old High German ratan, German raten "to advise, counsel, guess"), from PIE root *re(i)- "to reason, count" (cognates: Sanskrit radh- "to succeed, accomplish," Greek arithmos "number amount," Old Church Slavonic raditi "to take thought, attend to," Old Irish im-radim "to deliberate, consider"). Words from this root in most modern Germanic languages still mean "counsel, advise."

Sense of "make out the character of (a person)" is attested from 1610s. Connected to riddle via notion of "interpret." Transference to "understand the meaning of written symbols" is unique to Old English and (perhaps under English influence) Old Norse raða. Most languages use a word rooted in the idea of "gather up" as their word for "read" (such as French lire, from Latin legere). Read up "study" is from 1842; read out (v.) "expel by proclamation" (Society of Friends) is from 1788. read-only in computer jargon is recorded from 1961.

read (adj.)

1580s, "having knowledge gained from reading," in well-read, etc., past participle adjective from read (v.).

read (n.)

"an act of reading," 1825, from read (v.).