bide

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English biden,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English bīdan (“to stay, remain, wait”),^[5][3][6] inherited from Proto-Germanic *bīdaną (“to wait”).^[1][3][7] It is cognate with Old Saxon bīdan, Middle Dutch bīden, Old High German bītan, Old Frisian bīda, Old Norse bíða and Gothic 𐌱𐌴𐌹𐌳𐌰𐌽 (beidan, “to wait”).^[5][8][7] The further origin is uncertain:^[3] Etymonline reports Watkins's suggestion of Proto-Indo-European *bheidh- (“to trust, confide, persuade”), through the notion of waiting trustingly,^[3][4] and Orel relates the verb to Latin fīdō (“to trust”) and Ancient Greek πείθομαι (peíthomai, “to be persuaded, to obey”).^[7] Hoad finds the forms identical but the connection of sense unclear,^[9] and Ayto also sees an unclear link with Old English bēodan, a partial source of bid.^[10] The compound abide has mostly replaced the simple verb, and some later uses of bide may be shortenings of it.^[5][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To stay or wait: about 725, in an Old English version of Genesis.^[8][12] Old English bīdan covered continuing, remaining, tarrying and awaiting,^[6] as in Orosius's Seó eorþe gíniende bád, the earth went on yawning.^[6] Etymonline also gives "to trust, rely" for the Old English verb.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Dictionary.com suggests that the meaning apparently ran from having trust through enduring and waiting to abiding and remaining.^[13] In Middle English the verb was frequent, in phrases such as bide on live, to stay alive, and bide in bay, to stand at bay.^[3] It was used of a person staying in a place, as in Chaucer's "I may no lenger byde".^[2] It survived regularly in Scots and northern English, while abide displaced it elsewhere except in bide one's time,^[5][3][8] and 19th-century poets took it up again, partly as an archaism.^[5] Johnson (1755) gave "to endure; to suffer" for the transitive verb, quoting King Lear on those "That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm", and "to dwell" and "to remain in a place" for the intransitive.^[14] I bide my time is reported as the motto of the earls of Loudon in a note of 1806, and Etymonline thinks that Scott's use of it in The Bride of Lammermoor may have made it popular.^[3] Wright's dialect dictionary records the verb across Scotland, Ireland and England for waiting, staying and dwelling, with to let bide for leaving someone alone.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 725 – to stay, wait.^[8][12] The OED's Old English examples also have to remain in a state, to stay rather than go, and transitively to wait for.^[5]
• 13th century – to endure, suffer.^[9]
• c. 1275 – to await submissively, submit to (obsolete after 1400).^[5]
• c. 1280 – to live or reside in a place.^[5]
• before 1300 – with for, to, on or upon, to wait (northern; obsolete after 1609).^[5]
• c. 1400 – of things, to remain, be left; to face or withstand.^[5]
• before 1513 – bide by, to stand firm by, stick to.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. bide one's time: to wait patiently for an opportunity: She bided her time until the chairman left the room.^[16][17][5]
2. (archaic or dialect) To stay or remain in a place: Bide here till the rain stops.^[16][17][5]
3. (archaic or dialect) To live or dwell somewhere.^[16][18][5]
4. (archaic) To continue in some state or condition.^[18][4][5]
5. To wait or tarry.^[18][4][5]
6. Of things, to be left as they are: Let the old quarrel bide.^[18][5]
7. To face or withstand something.^[5][19]
8. (archaic or dialect) To put up with or endure.^[16][19]
9. bide by: (Scots) to abide by.^[16][5]

Word family

• bider
• abide

Related words

• bid
• faith
• fidelity
• abode

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
17. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
18. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
19. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press