Bid

I bid you good night. I wish you good night, or I pray that you may have a good night. This is the Anglo-Saxon biddan, to ask, pray, or intreat. Whence “beads-men” (q.v.), “bidding prayer” (q.v.). “Bid him welcome.”

“Neither bid him God-speed.”—2 John 10, 11.

To bid the [marriage] banns. To ask if anyone objects to the marriage of the persons named. “Si quis” (q.v.).

To bid to the wedding. In the New Testament is to ask to the wedding feast.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.