different between tread vs overtread

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t??d/
• Rhymes: -?d

Etymology 1

From Middle English treden, from Old English tredan, from Proto-West Germanic *tredan, from Proto-Germanic *trudan?.

Verb

tread (third-person singular simple present treads, present participle treading, simple past trod or tread or treaded, past participle trod or tread or trodden or treaded)

1. (intransitive) To step or walk (on or across something); to trample.
2. (transitive) To step or walk upon.

3. (figuratively, with certain adverbs of manner) To proceed, to behave (in a certain manner).

4. To beat or press with the feet.

5. To work a lever, treadle, etc., with the foot or the feet.
6. To go through or accomplish by walking, dancing, etc.

   • I am resolved to forsake Malta, tread a pilgrimage to fair Jerusalem.
7. To crush under the foot; to trample in contempt or hatred; to subdue.
8. (intransitive) To copulate; said of (especially male) birds.
9. (transitive, of a male bird) To copulate with.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Chaucer to this entry?)

10. (transitive) To crush grapes with one's feet to make wine

    Synonym: stomp

Usage notes

• Treaded is not commonly used in the UK and is less common in the US as well. It is apparently used more often in tread water.
• Tread is sometimes used as a past and past participle, especially in the US.

Derived terms

Related terms

• trade

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English tred, from treden (“to tread”).

Noun

tread (plural treads)

1. A step taken with the foot.
2. A manner of stepping.

   • She is coming, my own, my sweet; / Were it ever so airy a tread, / My heart would hear her and beat.

3. The sound made when someone or something is walking.
   • 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

     The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, for all they went so slowly; it was different indeed from the heavy creaking tread of Henry Jekyll. Utterson sighed. "Is there never anything else?" he asked.

   • 1896, Bret Harte, Barker's Luck and Other Stories

     But when, after a singularly heavy tread and the jingle of spurs on the platform, the door flew open to the newcomer, he seemed a realization of our worst expectations.

4. (obsolete) A way; a track or path.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

5. The horizontal part of a step in a flight of stairs.
6. The grooves carved into the face of a tire, used to give the tire traction. [from 1900s]
7. The grooves on the bottom of a shoe or other footwear, used to give grip or traction.
8. (biology) The chalaza of a bird's egg; the treadle.
9. The act of avian copulation in which the male bird mounts the female by standing on her back.
10. (fortification) The top of the banquette, on which soldiers stand to fire over the parapet.
11. A bruise or abrasion produced on the foot or ankle of a horse that interferes, or strikes its feet together.

Synonyms

• (horizontal part of a step): run

Antonyms

• (horizontal part of a step): rise, riser

Derived terms

• retread (Etymology 1)

Translations

See also

• tread on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

Anagrams

• E-tard, adret, dater, derat, drate, rated, tared, trade

English

Etymology

From Middle English overtreden, from Old English ofertredan.

Verb

overtread (third-person singular simple present overtreads, present participle overtreading, simple past overtrod, past participle overtrodden)

1. (transitive) To tread over or upon.

References

• overtread in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• over-rated, overrated, overtrade