reading Definition

read
verb read, reading

1. To look at and understand (printed or written words).
2. To speak (words which are printed or written).
3. To learn or gain knowledge of something by reading.

Example: read the election results in the newspaper
intr
4. To pass one's leisure time reading books, especially for pleasure.

Example: She doesn't read much
5. To look at or be able to see something and get information from it.

Example: cannot read the clock without my glasses
6. To interpret or understand the meaning of something other than writing, eg a map, a compass, the clouds, etc.

Example: read a map
7. To interpret or understand (signs, marks, etc) without using one's eyes.

Example: read Braille
8. To know (a language) well enough to be able to understand something written in it.

Example: speaks Chinese but cannot read it
intr
9. To have a certain wording.

Example: The letter reads as follows
tr & intr
10. To think that (a statement, etc) has a particular meaning.

Example: read it as criticism
Thesaurus: interpret, understand, decipher, construe, infer, see, comprehend.
intr
11. Said of writing: to convey meaning in a specified way.

Example: an essay which reads well
Example: reads badly
12. Said of a dial, instrument, etc: to show a particular measurement.

Example: The barometer reads ‘fair'
13. To replace (a word, phrase, etc) by another.

Example: for ‘three' read ‘four'
14. To put into a specified condition by reading.

Example: She read the child to sleep
15. To study (a subject) at university.
16. To hear and understand, especially when using two-way radio

Example: Do you read me?

noun

1. A period or act of reading.
2. A book, magazine, etc considered in terms of how readable it is.

Example: a good read

Idiom: read between the lines

To perceive a meaning which is implied but not stated.

Idiom: take something as read

To accept or assume it.

Idiom: well read (widely read)

Educated, especially in literature, through reading.

Etymology: Anglo-Saxon rædan.

Phrasal Verb: read something into something

To find something in a person's writing, words, actions, etc (a meaning which is not stated clearly or made obvious and which may not have been intended).

Phrasal Verb: read something in or out

To transfer data from a disk or other storage device into the main memory of a computer.

Phrasal Verb: read something off from something

To take (figures, etc) as a reading from an instrument, database etc.
Example: read off the net profits from the speadsheet

Phrasal Verb: read something out

To read it aloud.

Phrasal Verb: read up on something

To learn a subject by reading books about it.

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reading
noun

1. The action of someone who reads.

Thesaurus: interpretation, recital, recitation, rendition, enactment, performance, version, treatment.
2. The ability to read. Also as adj.

Example: his reading is poor
Example: reading age
Example: reading glasses
3. Any book, printed material, etc that can be read.

Thesaurus: excerpt, passage, section, instalment, quotation, extract, brief, digest.
4. An event at which a play, poetry, etc is read to an audience.
(Brit)
5. politics.
Any one of the three stages (the first reading, second reading or third reading) in the passage of a bill through Parliament, when it is respectively introduced, discussed, and reported on by a committee.
6. The actual word or words that can be read in a text, especially where more than one version is possible.

Example: one of many disputed readings in the Bible
7. Information, figures, etc shown by an instrument or meter.

Example: thermometer reading
8. An understanding or interpretation of something written or said, or of circumstances, etc.

Example: her reading of the situation
9. Knowledge gained from having read books.

adj

1. Fond of or addicted to reading.

Example: the reading public