adj.
WA redd
'afraid'
(Modern English rad)Always derived from ON, cp. OIcel hræddr (< *hræððr) ‘afraid, frightened, timid’, the pp. of hræða ‘to frighten’, which supposes a PGmc *xrēðjan- or *xrēþjan-. There are no corresponding forms in Go or WGmc, though it is commonly supposed that the root is related by Ablaut to PGmc *xraþ- (*xrað-) > OIcel hraðr, OE hræð, hræd, MLG rat, OHG hrad ‘quick’ (see esp. Heid. s.v. hraþa-). A hypothetical OE cognate of OIcel hræða could have had /d/ (via Verner's Law; and cp. hræd ‘quick'), and so the presence of /d/ in the ME form is not a test of loan, but the ME vocalism is a better argument for derivation from ON: rather than <e> the by shortening of /e:/ (< PGmc *xrēð-) that we should expect in Angl areas, the majority of ME spellings show <a> (as in Gaw), as though shortened from /æ:/ (< ON /æ:/); but this cannot be regarded as conclusive.
PGmc Ancestor
*xrēðjan- or *xrēþjan-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
hræddr ‘afraid, frightened, timid’
(ONP hræða (3) (vb.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Far ræða, Icel hræða, Norw ræda, Dan dial ræde, OSw ræþe, Sw dial rädda
OE Cognate
Phonological and morphological markers
[ON /ɑ:/ < PGmc */e:/ (1)] (possibly diagnostic)
[ON fricative /ð/ < PGmc */ð/] (possibly diagnostic)
Summary category
B1c
Characteristically N and E in ME and Sc. in MnE dial.
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Gaw 251; Cl 1543; WA 1040, 2510