[riːd], (Noun)

Definitions:
- a tall, slender-leaved plant of the grass family, which grows in water or on marshy ground

- a weak or impressionable person
(e.g: the jurors were mere reeds in the wind)

- a piece of thin cane or metal, sometimes doubled, which vibrates in a current of air to produce the sound of various musical instruments, as in the mouthpiece of a clarinet or oboe or at the base of some organ pipes
(e.g: a reed instrument)

- an electrical contact used in a magnetically operated switch or relay
(e.g: the permanent magnet closes the reeds and contacts together)

- a comblike implement (originally made from reed or cane) used by a weaver to separate the threads of the warp and correctly position the weft

- a set of semi-cylindrical adjacent mouldings like reeds laid together


Phrases:
- as slim as a reed

Origin:
Old English hrēod, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch riet and German Ried