ride

verb

1. (ambitransitive)To transport oneself by sitting on and directing a horse, later also a bicycle etc.

   “I ride to work every day and park the bike outside the office.”

   “Go Peto, to horse: for thou, and I, / Haue thirtie miles to ride yet ere dinner time.”

   “[…] I will take my horse early to-morrow morning and ride over to Stoke, and settle with one of them.”

   “He rid to the end of the village, where he alighted and ſent a man thence to Mr. Tuſher with a meſſage that a gentleman of London would ſpeak to him on urgent buſineſs.”

   “It is characteristic of her that she hates trains, that she arrives from a rail-road journey a nervous wreck; but that she can ride a horse steadily for weeks through the most dangerous western passes.”

2. (ambitransitive)To be transported in a vehicle; to travel as a passenger.

   “Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore.”

   “In an elaborately built, indoor San Francisco, passengers ride cable cars through quiet, hilly streets.”

3. (South-Africa, US, informal, transitive)To transport (someone) in a vehicle.

   “The cab rode him downtown.”

4. (intransitive)Of a ship: to sail, to float on the water.

   “Why name I ev'ry Place where Youths abound? / 'Tis Loſs of Time; and a too fruitful Ground. / The Bajan Baths, where Ships at Anchor ride, / And wholeſome Streams from Sulphur Fountains glide: […]”

   “By noon the sea went very high indeed, and our ship rode forecastle in, shipped several seas, and we thought once or twice our anchor had come home […]”

5. (intransitive, transitive)To be carried or supported by something lightly and quickly; to travel in such a way, as though on horseback.

   “The witch cackled and rode away on her broomstick.”

6. (transitive)To traverse by riding.

   “Early women tobogganists rode the course in the requisite attire of their day: skirts. In spite of this hindrance, some women riders turned in very respectable performances.”

7. (transitive)To convey, as by riding; to make or do by riding.

   “How many races have you ridden this year?”

   “The only men that safe can ride / Mine errands on the Scottish side.”

8. (figuratively, transitive)To exploit or take advantage of (a situation).

   “Now the question is: Can Lema ride his present impetus to a third tournament victory in the pressure-loaded Open or will he run out of steam?”

   “By labeling milk free of the artificial hormone, the dairy industry can ride the popularity of natural foods, without the greater expense and special feeds required to produce milk that can be fully certified as “organic.””

9. (intransitive)To support a rider, as a horse; to move under the saddle.

   “A horse rides easy or hard, slow or fast.”

10. (ambitransitive, slang)To mount (someone) to have sex with them.

    “Cowboy. That's what he calls me when we are like this. It's as if I'm sitting in a saddle and he is my horse. And when he starts to buck, I ride.”

    “She rode him hard, and he squeezed her breasts, and she came again.”

    “Isis rode my mug like she was on a ten-inch dick, and as soon as she nutted I tossed her ass off a me and flipped her on her back, then fucked the shit outta her cause it was payback time.”

11. (Ireland, ambitransitive, slang)To have sex with (someone).
12. (colloquial, transitive)To nag or criticize; to annoy (someone).

    ““One old boy started riding me about not having gone to Vietnam; I just spit my coffee at him, and he backed off.”

13. (intransitive)Of clothing: to gradually move (up) and crease; to ruckle.

    “In athletics, triple jumper Ashia Hansen advises a thong for training because, while knickers ride up, ‘thongs have nowhere left to go’: but in Beijing Britain's best are likely, she says, to forgo knickers altogether, preferring to go commando for their country under their GB kit.”

14. (intransitive)To rely, depend (on).

    “With so much riding on the new payments system, it was thus a grave embarrassment to the government when the tariff for 2006-07 had to be withdrawn for amendments towards the end of February.”

15. (intransitive)Of clothing: to rest (in a given way on a part of the body).

    “She's wearing inky-blue jeans that ride low enough on her hips that her aquamarine thong peeks out teasingly at the back.”

16. To play defense on the defensemen or midfielders, as an attackman.
17. To manage insolently at will; to domineer over.

    “The nobility[…] could no longer endure to be ridden by bakers, coblers[sic], brewers, and the like.”

18. To overlap (each other); said of bones or fractured fragments.
19. (transitive)To monitor (some component of an audiovisual signal) in order to keep it within acceptable bounds.

    “vocal riding”

    “The board operator normally watches the meter scale marked for modulation percentage, riding the gain to bring volume peaks into the 85% to 100% range.”

    ““You don't want them riding the volume knob, so that's why you learn how to do your levels properly to make the whole thing transparent for the listener. […]”

20. In jazz, to play in a steady rhythmical style.

    “The quintet in Propheticape muses out-of-measured-time until Holland leads it into swift, riding jazz.”

noun

1. An instance of riding.

   “Can I have a ride on your bike?”

   “We took the horses for an early-morning ride in the woods.”

   “go for a quick ride”

2. (informal)A vehicle.

   “That's a nice ride; what did it cost?”

   “pimp my ride”

3. An amusement ridden at a fair or amusement park.

   “the kids went on all the rides”

4. A lift given to someone in another person's vehicle.

   “Can you give me a ride home?”

5. (UK)A road or avenue cut in a wood, for riding; a bridleway or other wide country path.

   “We walked, perhaps, half a mile […], and came out suddenly, where five rides met, at a small classic temple between lichened stucco statues which faced a circle of turf, several acres in extent.”

   “"Mr Fawcett comes down the ride, rushing his chair along like it was a racing car... He carried on down the ride. Next thing Miss Harmsworth comes down the ride from the field..."”

6. (UK, archaic, dialectal)A saddle horse.

   “Stella, who in her day was a beautiful ride.”

7. (Ireland)A person (or sometimes a thing or a place) that is visually attractive.

   “Absolutely, and I agree about Madonna. An absolute ride *still*. :-) M.”

8. A steady rhythmical style.
9. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of ride cymbal.
10. (figuratively)A wild, bewildering experience of some duration.

    “That story was a ride from start to finish.”

    “We all started to dance / Without wearing no life vest / We all started to dance / It was quite a ride”

11. (slang, vulgar)An act of sexual intercourse.

    “I gave my boyfriend a ride before breakfast.”

12. A district inspected by an excise officer.
13. (historical)A fault caused by the overlapping of leads, etc.