What’s in a name?

Origin: A word inherited from Germanic.

Etymology: Cognate with Old Frisian rēda to advise, to deliberate, to help, Middle Dutch rāden to advise, to suggest, to convince, to devise, to guess, to think, to plot (Dutch raden), Old Saxon rādan to advise, to plan, to arrange (Middle Low German rāden, also in senses ‘to rule’, ‘to predict’, ‘to relate’), Old High German rātan, rāten to advise, to deliberate, to assist, to plot (Middle High Germanrāten, also in sense ‘to guess’; German raten), Old Icelandic ráða to advise, to devise, to plot, to rule, to explain, to read, interpret, to punish, to undertake, Norn (Shetland) ro to rule, Old Swedish råþa to advise, to deliberate, to rule, to determine, to deal with, to fathom, to interpret (Swedish råda), Old Danish rathæ to advise, to deliberate, to rule, to see to, to comprehend (Danish råde , †raade), Gothic -redan, probably the same Indo-European base as Early Irish ráidid says, speaks (Irish ráidh; compare Early Irish imm-rádi deliberates, considers), Old Church Slavonic raditi to take thought (about a thing), to attend to, to take care of (a thing), Sanskrit rādh- to succeed, accomplish.

SOURCE: “read, v.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, 2016.