Etymology From a metathetic variation of gird (“to strike, smite, upbraid, scold, jibe”), from Middle English girden, gerden (“to strike, thrust, smite”, literally “smite with a rod”), from gerd, yerd (“a rod, yard”). More at yard.
1
Obsolete To pierce (something) with a weapon; to wound, to stab.
Where feeling one cloſe couched by her ſide / She lightly lept out of her filed bedd, / And to her weapon ran, in minde to gride / The loathed leachour.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 408:
So ſtoutly he withſtood their ſtrong aſſay, / Till that at laſt, when he aduantage ſpyde, / His poynant ſpeare he thruſt with puiſſant ſway / At proud Cymochles, whiles his ſhield was wyde, / That through his thigh the mortall ſteele did gryde[…]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, pages 300-301:
3
To produce a grinding or scraping sound.
Fiercely flies The blast of North and East, and ice Makes daggers at the sharpen’d eaves, And bristles all the brakes and thorns To yon hard crescent, as she hangs Above the wood which grides and clangs Its leafless ribs and iron horns Together, in the drifts that pass To darken on the rolling brine That breaks the coast.1849, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 108:
gride
noun
Etymology From a metathetic variation of gird (“to strike, smite, upbraid, scold, jibe”), from Middle English girden, gerden (“to strike, thrust, smite”, literally “smite with a rod”), from gerd, yerd (“a rod, yard”). More at yard.
1
A harsh grating sound.
The tumultuous noise resolved itself now into the disorderly mingling of many voices, the gride of many wheels, the creaking of waggons, and the staccato of hoofs.1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 160: