h₃reydʰ-
“to ride, to travel, to move”Ride, travel, move
A PIE verbal root meaning "to ride, to travel on horseback," continued in Old English rīdan ("to ride"), whence ride, road ("a riding, a journey"), and raid (a Scottish/Northern English variant of "road" meaning "a riding expedition"). The root preserves evidence for PIE equestrianism.
Discussion
The root *h₃reydʰ- ("to ride, to travel") is reconstructed from Old English rīdan ("to ride"), Old High German rītan ("to ride"), Old Norse ríða ("to ride"), and Old Irish ríad ("riding, driving"). Pokorny (IEW 861) and Rix (LIV² s.v. *Hreydʰ-) discuss the root. The attestation is primarily western IE (Celtic and Germanic).
Old English rīdan ("to ride") gave modern English ride, one of the most basic verbs of movement. The noun road (Old English rād, "a riding, a journey, a road") originally meant "the act of riding" — a road was defined by the activity performed on it, not by its physical construction. This semantic shift from "riding" to "route" illustrates how action nouns become place nouns.
Raid descends from the same Old English rād via Scots English, where it preserved the original sense of "a riding expedition, a mounted attack." The word was reintroduced to standard English by Sir Walter Scott in the early nineteenth century with its current meaning of "a sudden attack."
Ready (Old English rǣde, "prepared for riding, equipped") may derive from the same root, meaning originally "prepared to ride out." The semantic development from "equipped for a journey" to general "preparedness" is straightforward.
Old Irish ríad ("riding, driving") and the compound carpat-ríad ("chariot-riding") confirm the Celtic attestation. The root's association with mounted movement provides evidence for the importance of horses and riding in PIE and early IE cultures.
Notes
gsc-gap: source of "ride", "road", "raid", "ready"
Laryngeal Analysis
Contains *h₃; colours preceding vowel.
Ablaut
Full grade *h₃reydʰ-, zero grade *h₃ridʰ-.