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reed

/ɹiːd/noun, verb

reed is a noun meaning “Any of various types of tall stiff perennial grass-like plants growing together in groups near water” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-E-E-D and has one syllable, and it appears 12 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of reed is reeds.

What does reed mean?

noun

  1. 1

    Any of various types of tall stiff perennial grass-like plants growing together in groups near water.

  2. 2

    The hollow stem of these plants.

  3. 3

    Part of an aerophone musical instrument, comprising a thin piece of wood or metal, which vibrates to produce sound when air passes through it.

  4. 4

    Short for reed instrument.

  5. 5

    A comb-like part of a beater for beating the weft when weaving.

    Coordinate term: sley

  6. 6

    A piece of whalebone or similar for stiffening the skirt or waist of a woman's dress.

  7. 7

    Reeding.

  8. 8

    A tube containing the train of powder for igniting the charge in blasting.

  9. 9

    ScotlandUKThe fourth stomach of a ruminant; rennet.

verb

  1. 1

    To thatch.

  2. 2

    To mill or mint with reeding.

  3. 3

    simple past and past participle of ree (a form of ree)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce reed?

  • /ɹiːd/

Reed has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-reed.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of reed

  • reeds plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • reeding participle, present
  • reeded participle, past
  • read

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is reed?

Reed appears 12 times per million words in written English, the 6,347th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Words people confuse with reed

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

read vs reed170 G

Sounds like: read (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Reed in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchroseau (grass-like plant), canne, jonc (hollow stem), anche (music: part of mouthpiece), instrument à anche (music: type of wind instrument), peigne (weaving)
GermanSchilf, Ried, Rohr (grass-like plant), Schilfrohr (hollow stem), Rohrblatt, Blatt (music: part of mouthpiece)
Portuguesejunco, cana (grass-like plant), colmo (hollow stem), palheta (music: part of mouthpiece), pente (weaving)
Spanishjunco, carrizo, caña (grass-like plant)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does reed come from?

From Middle English red, from Old English hrēod, from Proto-West Germanic *hreud (“reed”), of uncertain origin.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).