Walked through water or another liquid with effort; moved slowly through something difficult or troublesome.
From Old English 'wadan' meaning to go or proceed. The literal meaning of walking through water has been used since before 1000 CE, with the figurative sense (struggling through difficulty) developing later.
When you 'wade through' a difficult book or boring task, you're using a 500-year-old metaphor that compares mental struggle to the physical slowness of walking through water—our language loves comparing thinking to movement!
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