I was doing a crossword puzzle today, and I ran across a clue that said, “offered,” and the answer was “bade.”
I’ve never heard it used that way, so I looked up “bade” in the dictionary (online) and it said “simple past tense for ‘bid.’”
I thought, when you’re talking about, say, an auction, the past tense for “bid” is also “bid.” Am I mistaken?
In fact, the dictionary page itself uses it that way in their example:
**3. Commerce. to offer (a certain sum) as the price one will pay or charge:
They bid $25,000 and got the contract.
**
I think I found the page you were looking at. The entry is a bit confusing, but they seem to be saying that bade is the past of bid as a synonym for “command,” not in an auction.
That’s actually how I learned it, rather than for an auction.
Oh, you are so right! I didn’t notice that.
So the dictionary was correct, but the crossword puzzle was inaccurate.
Thanks, Flyer.
I wouldn’t say it’s wrong, just archaic.
Here’s an example of it being used: “he bade fifty pounds as a reward…” from an book written in 1868.
He bade her good morning = offered her the greeting “good morning” ?
It may be archaic, but people understand me when I use it. They don’t even make fun of me!
Exactly - bade is past tense for bid in a greeting.
Bid is past tense of bid in an auction.
“Bade” was also the past tense for “bid” in the sense of “to offer.” See my links above. The crossword usage is correct, if not a bit archaic.
Yeah, but do you pronounce it “bade” or “bad” for extra pretension points?
I’m nothing if I’m not pretentious.
*Bade *and *bid *are both acceptable past tenses for the verb to bid. In principle they’re interchangeable; I don’t think we can say that one is wrong and the other right in any particular context. In most varieties of English one or other is preferred, depending on the context, but which is preferred in any contextmay vary between different varieties.
In the sense of “to offer a price”, the preferred past tense is bid in AmE (as this thread testifies) and in most varieties of English used in England, and this has been so since at least Shakespeare’s time. But in Scotland it’s bade.
Traditionally, “bade” and “bad” are homonyms. The pronunciation that rhymes with “bayed” is a spelling pronunciation which in most varieties of English is still regarded as a solecism.
According to whom? I just consulted a half-dozen dictionaries, all of which give both pronunciations, but with no usage notes. (Dictionaries usually mark highly stigmatized pronunciations.) Also, the OED gives a number of variant spellings of “bade”, many of which suggest the word was “traditionally” (at least, in the Middle Ages) pronounced as “bayed”.
“I bade her farewell.”
Any commentary to go with that?
I didn’t think commentary was necessary. It’s an example of use of the term that we’re familiar with. It is archaic though.
Well, sure. I didn’t get the sense the OP never heard of “bade” before (and a similar usage to yours was already mentioned), but rather that they never heard it as the past in the sense of an auction specifically.
From Romeo and Juliette
*LADY CAPULET
Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.
NURSE
Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year old
I **bade *her come. What, lamb! What, ladybird!
God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!
But if all the OP’s clue said was “offered”, that doesn’t necessarily imply an auction. That was something I believe he read into it?
Yes. The subject title and question in the OP is slightly at odds, but it seems to me as the OP was restricting the usage to the auction in the subject, they were presumably aware of other usages of the word “bade.”