Now dial. Forms: 1– trod; 6 troad, trood, trodd, -e, 6–7 trode. [OE. trod neut. (also trodu fem., acc. trode) = ON. troð treading, trampling, OHG. trota winepress (cf. mod. Norw. dial. trod fem. foot-board, step), f. ON. troða, Goth. trudan to tread, ablaut variants of WGer. tredan to tread.]
† 1. Tread, footprint, track, trace. Obs.
Beowulf (Z.), 843. Secga æneʓum þara þe tir-leases trode sceawode, hu he … on weʓ þanon … feorh-lastas bær.
946–61. Laws of Edgar, I. c. 5. Gyf him hundred bedrife trod on oðer hundred.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 380 (MS. Titus). Þe dunes underuoð þe trodes [v.r. treden] of him suluen.
c. 1420. Chron. Vilod., 513. Þey nyste neuer where he was a-go, Ne of his trodus no sygne þer nasse.
1551. Sir R. Bowes, in Eng. Border Hen. VIII. (1847), II. 18. They may lawfullye followe there [stolen] goodes either wth a sleuthe hounde the trodd thereof, or ellse by suche other meanes as they best can devise.
1563. in Bp. W. Nicholson, Leg. Marchiarum (1705), 127. Providing the Parties grieved to follow their lawful Trode with Hound and Horn, with Hue and Cry and all other accustomed manner of fresh Pursuit.
b. Hot-trod: see HOT a. 12.
2. A trodden way; a footpath, path, way. dial.
1570. Levins, Manip., 155/32. A Trod, path, callis, is, hæc.
a. 1575. Pilkington, Expos. Neh. iv. 13. (1585), 60. God and the world cannot be friends and that maketh so few Courtiers to tread this trodde.
1578. Paradise Dainty Devises, A iij. And takes us from the trod, which guides to en[d]lesse gayne And sets us in the way that leades to lasting payne.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., VI. x. 5. He chaunst to come, far from all peoples troad.
1642. H. More, Song of Soul, IV. xxvii. Thus in the middle trod I safely went, and fairly well have row’d.
1678. Phillips (ed. 4), Trode, (old word) signifying a path.
1825. Brockett, N. C. Words, Trod, a foot path through a field.
1897. Speaker, 4 Sept., 260/2. The lane and ‘trod’ must have saved me the mile or more.
3. The tread of a wheel (TREAD sb. 10 b). dial.
1797. J. Curr, Coal Viewer, 20. The rim [of the corf wheel] is 11/2 inches broad on the trod or face.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 645. Making the wheels and spokes of cast iron, with hoops, tyres, or trods, of malleable iron.
4. Comb., as † trod-gate, † trod-way, trodden way or track.
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 2088. Alexander … Ay trottis him to þe trod-gate [Dublin MS. troyde-gate] as him þe torche wyssis.
1661. J. Childrey, Brit. Baconica, 164. The Coals grow so near the surface … that the Cart wheels turn them up in the trod-ways.
