[app. a variant of LEAD sb.2 (which occurs much earlier in the same sense); perh. confused with lade, the regular Sc. and northern form of LODE, OE. lád. The synonymous LEAT is not etymologically related.]
1. A channel constructed for leading water to a mill wheel; a mill-race. (Often in comb. mill-lade.) Chiefly Sc.
1808–80. Jamieson, Lade, lead.
1862. Act 25 & 26 Vict., c. 97 § 6. The construction or alteration of mill dams, or lades, or water wheels so as to afford a reasonable means for the passage of salmon.
1864. A. McKay, Hist. Kilmarnock (1880), 106. A corn-mill, which was driven by a lade that flowed through the same spot.
1868. Perthsh. Jrnl., 18 June. Some fine sport was enjoyed; but the salmon on two or three occasions made a rush into the lade and escaped.
¶ 2. A sb. lade, with a sense ‘channel, water-course, mouth of a river,’ has been evolved by etymologists from place-names in which the last element is -lade (OE. ʓelád channel, as in Creccaʓelád Cricklade); the interpretation has been suggested by LADE v. The word was admitted into Bailey’s and Johnson’s Dicts., and has occasionally been used in literature.
[1623. Lisle, Ælfric on O. & N. Test., To Rdr. 34. How many learned men haue mistaken the name of a place neere Oxford called Creklade? as if it sauored of Greeke, when it is but old English, and signifies Ostium rinuli, a place where some Creeke or little brooke doth lade or empty it selfe into a greater water.]
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Lada (in old Records),… a Lade, Lading, or Course of Water.
1721–1800. Bailey, Lade, a Passage of Water, the Mouth of a River.
1865. Kingsley, Herew., II. xi. 180. Cotinglade … seemingly a lade, leat, or canal through Cottenham Fen to the Westwater.
1873. H. Kingsley, Oakshott, xxvi. 184. Every trickling tiny lade, every foaming brook, told its own story.
