Etymology: < bid v.¹ 3.

Etymology: I. Old English béodan , béad , budon , boden , = Old Saxon biodan (Middle Dutch and Dutch bieden ), Old High German biotan (Middle High German and modern German bieten ), Old Norse bioða , Gothic biudan (past tense bauþ , budum , participle budans ) < Old Germanic *beudan ‘to stretch out, reach out, offer, present,’ hence ‘to communicate, inform, announce, proclaim, command’; pre-Germanic *bheudh- , cognate with Sanskrit budh to present, and perhaps with Greek πυθ- (for ϕυθ- ) in πυθέσθαι ‘to inform oneself.’ From the past participle boden was derived the noun boda messenger, whence the verb bodian to bode v.¹, announce. The normal Middle English forms were bēde(n, past tense bead, bēd, beed, plural buden, past participle boden. But by form-levelling, the past tense had also plural bēden, bēd(e from the singular; and later also bod(e, by assimilation to the past participle II. Old English biddan, bæd, bǽdum, beden, = Old Saxon biddian (Middle Dutch and Dutch bidden), Old High German and modern German bitten, Old Norse biðja, Gothic bidjan (past tense baþ, bêdum, participle bidans) < Germanic *bidjan, assigned to a pre-Germanic *bhedh- ‘to press’ (compare Sanskrit bâdhate to press), whence the senses ‘to ask pressingly, beg, pray, require, demand, command.’ (Osthoff would connect bidjan with Greek πείθω.) The normal Middle English forms were bidde(n, past tense bad, plural beaden, bede(n, past participle beden. By form-levelling the past tense had also occasionally singular bead, bēd, beed, and at length plural baden, bade, bad; and the past participle became bidden, whence also a later past tense bid. III. Thus the sense ‘command’ had been developed in both verbs already in Old English The past tenses were further confused in form in Middle English The result was the frequent substitution of the forms of one verb for the other, in other senses also, and their total confusion after 1400–1500. As a whole, the forms of biddan, bid are those which survive in literary English, but in the dialects these are quite mixed, in such conjugations as bid, bad or bod, bodden or budden. Senses survive from both verbs, though mostly archaic, or in certain unanalysed phrases, as to ‘bid farewell,’ ‘bid a truce,’ ‘bid fair’; the chief modern use is that of ‘bid at an auction,’ ‘bid for votes or support,’ which belongs to bede. The senses of ‘invite’ and ‘order’ are in every-day use in the north, but archaic in southern speech, where ‘bid him do it’ is regularly made ‘tell him to do it.’ Particular forms of the past tense and past participle are preferred with particular senses.

Etymology: A variant of behod, behoved, past tense of behove v. (Still in modern Scots as a present tense.)