gad

Interjection

gad

1. An exclamatory interjection roughly equivalent to 'by God', 'goodness gracious', 'for goodness' sake'.

   1905 That's the trouble -- it was too easy for you -- you got reckless -- thought you could turn me inside out, and chuck me in the gutter like an empty purse. But, by gad, that ain't playing fair: that's dodging the rules of the game. — Edith Wharton, House of Mirth.

Verb

gad (third-person singular simple present gads, present participle gadding, simple past and past participle gadded)

1. (intransitive) To move from one location to another in an apparently random and frivolous manner.
   • 1852, Alice Cary, Clovernook ....

     This, I suppose, is the virgin who abideth still in the house with you. She is not given, I hope, to gadding overmuch, nor to vain and foolish decorations of her person with ear-rings and finger-rings, and crisping-pins: for such are unprofitable, yea, abominable.

   • 1903, Howard Pyle, The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Part III, Chapter Fourth, page 123

     So when he saw King Arthur he said: "Thou knave! Wherefore didst thou quit thy work to go a-gadding?"

   • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 19,

     But there is no telling the sacrament, seldom if in any case revealed to the gadding world, wherever under circumstances at all akin to those here attempted to be set forth, two of great Nature's nobler order embrace.

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XIII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, OCLC 1227855:

     If you are on the board of governors of a school and have contracted to supply an orator for the great day of the year, you can be forgiven for feeling a trifle jumpy when you learn that the silver-tongued one has gadded off to the metropolis, leaving no word as to when he will be returning, if ever.

Noun

gad (plural gads)

1. One who roams about idly; a gadabout.

Alternative forms

• ged, gade

Noun

gad (plural gads)

1. (Northern England, Scotland, derogatory) A greedy and/or stupid person.
   • Jamieson, John (1825)

     He's a perfect gad for silver.

   • Gordon, George (1913)

     Ye greedy ged, ye have taken the very breath out o' me.

   Get over here, ye good-for-nothing gadǃ

References

• The Dictionary of the Scots Language

Noun

gad (plural gads)

1. A sharp-pointed object; a goad.
   • 1885, Detroit Free Press., December 17

     Twain finds his voice after a short search for it and when he impels it forward it is a good, strong, steady voice in harness until the driver becomes absent-minded, when it stops to rest, and then the gad must be used to drive it on again.

2. (obsolete) A metal bar.
   • 1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, Book XV:

     they sette uppon hym and drew oute their swerdys to have slayne hym – but there wolde no swerde byghte on hym more than uppon a gadde of steele, for the Hyghe Lorde which he served, He hym preserved.

   • Moxon

     Flemish steel […] some in bars and some in gads.

3. A pointed metal tool for breaking or chiselling rock, especially in mining.
   • Shakespeare

     I will go get a leaf of brass, / And with a gad of steel will write these words.

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 327:

     Frank was able to keep his eyes open long enough to check his bed with a miner's gad and douse the electric lamp

4. (dated, metallurgy) An indeterminate measure of metal produced by a furnace, perhaps equivalent to the bloom, perhaps weighing around 100 pounds.
   • 1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, p. 146.

     Twice a day a 'gad' of iron, i.e., a bloom weighing 1 cwt. was produced, which took from six to seven hours.

5. A spike on a gauntlet; a gadling.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Fairholt to this entry?)

6. (Britain, US, dialect) A rod or stick, such as a fishing rod, a measuring rod, or a rod used to drive cattle with.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Halliwell to this entry?)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Bartlett to this entry?)

Translations

Declension

Derived terms

Declension

Animate declension (‘venomous snake, viper, adder’):

Inanimate declension (‘poison, venom’):

Declension

Usage notes

• Lenites the following word.

Related terms

Declension

Usage notes

Gad or smol koknat is the third stage of coconut growth. It is preceded by giru (eastern dialect) or musu koknat (western dialect), and followed by kopespes.

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Declension

Derived terms

Noun

gad

1. Soft mutation of cad.

Mutation

Alternative forms

• gadawa (colloquial)

Verb

gad

1. (literary) second-person singular imperative of gadael

Mutation