gad
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Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ɡæd/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- Rhymes: -æd
Etymology 1
Euphemistic alteration of God.
Interjection
gad
- An exclamation roughly equivalent to by God, goodness gracious, for goodness' sake.
- 1905, Edith Wharton, chapter 13, in The House of Mirth:
- 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.
Derived terms
Etymology 2
From Middle English gadden (“to hurry, to rush about”).
Verb
gad (third-person singular simple present gads, present participle gadding, simple past and past participle gadded)
- (intransitive) To move from one location to another in an apparently random and frivolous manner.
- Synonym: gallivant
- 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?"
- 1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter [HTTP://GUTENBERG.NET.AU/EBOOKS06/0608511H.HTML 19].”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC:
- 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:
- 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.
- (of cattle) To run with the tail in the air, bent over the back, usually in an attempt to escape the warble fly.
Derived terms
Translations
to move about at random with seemingly little purpose
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Noun
gad (plural gads)
Etymology 3
From Middle English gade (“a fool, simpleton, rascal, scoundrel; bastard”), from Old English *gada (“fellow, companion, comrade, associate”), from Proto-West Germanic *gadō, from Proto-Germanic *gadô, *gagadô (“companion, associate”), related to Proto-West Germanic *gaduling (“kinsman”). Cognate with Dutch gade (“spouse”), German Gatte (“male spouse, husband”). See also gadling.
Alternative forms
Noun
gad (plural gads)
- (Northern England, Scotland, derogatory) A greedy and/or stupid person.
- Get over here, ye good-for-nothing gadǃ
- 1913, George Gordon, The Auld Clay Biggin:
- Ye greedy ged, ye have taken the very breath out o' me.
References
Etymology 4
From Middle English gad, gadde, borrowed from Old Norse gaddr (“goad, spike”), from Proto-Germanic *gazdaz (“spike, rod, stake”). Doublet of goad and yard.
Noun
gad (plural gads)
- (especially UK, US, dialect) A goad, a sharp-pointed rod for driving cattle, horses, etc, or one with a whip or thong on the end for the same purpose.
- Hyponym: goad
- 1684, Meriton, Praise Ale, l. 100, in 1851, James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, The Yorkshire Anthology: A Collection of Ancient and Modern Ballads, Poems and Songs, Relating to the County of Yorkshire, page 71:
- Ist yoakes and bowes and gad and yoaksticks there?
- c. 1844, Prairie Farmer:
- Does your cow kick? Do not fly into a passion and pound her with a handspike, or trim her with a gad or a cow-hide.
- 1888, “Robin Spraggon's Auld Grey Mare”, in The Monthly Chronicle of North-country Lore and Legend, page 171:
- Our thrifty dame, Mally, she rises soon at morn, She goes and tells the master I'm pulling up the corn; He clicks up the oxen gad and sair belabours me, For I'm Robin Spraggon's auld grey mare, ae how he's guided me!
- 1908, Folklore Society (Great Britain), Publications, page 288:
- On the morning of Palm-Sunday, the gamekeeper, some servant on the estate, brings with him a large gad or whip, with a long thong; the stock is made of the mountain ash, […]
- (UK, US, dialect) A rod or stick, such as a fishing rod or a measuring rod.
- 1836, A Collection of Right Merrie Garlands for North Country Anglers, page 4:
- And we'll prepare our limber gads,
Lang lines, and braw brass wheels;
- 1876, Armstrong, Wanny Blossoms, page 33:
- Seek out thy tackle, thy creel and thy gad.
- 1879, William Henderson, Folklore Society (Great Britain), Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders:
- Woe to the lad / without a rowen-tree gad.
- 1896, Proudlock, Borderland Muse, page 268:
- We'll splice oor gads nigh Barra Mill, Beneath yon auld birk tree.
- (especially mining) A pointed metal tool for breaking or chiselling rock.
- c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
- 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, published 2007, page 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
- (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.
- 1677–1683, Joseph Moxon, “(please specify the page)”, in Mechanick Exercises, or The Doctrine of Handy-Works, […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Joseph Moxon, published 1678–1683, →OCLC:
- Flemish steel […] some in bars and some in gads.
- 1836, Walter Scott, Guy Mannering, Or, The Astrologer: With the Author's Last Notes and Additions, page 372:
- When a man received sentence of death, he was put upon the gad as it was called, that is, secured to the bar of iron in the manner mentioned in the text. The practice subsisted in Edinburgh […]
- (dated, metallurgy) An indeterminate measure of metal produced by a furnace, sometimes equivalent to a bloom weighing around 100 pounds.
- 1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, page 146:
- Twice a day a 'gad' of iron, i.e., a bloom weighing 1 cwt. was produced, which took from six to seven hours.
- A spike on a gauntlet; a gadling.
- 1840, Charles Henry Hartshorne, An Endeavor to Classify the Sepulchral Remains in Northamptonshire, Or, a Discourse on Funeral Monuments in that County: Delivered Before the Members of the Religious and Useful Knowledge Society, at Northampton, page 35:
- Sometimes we see the knuckles ornamented with gads or gadlings.
- 1842, Ecclesiological Society, Illustrations of Monumental Brasses ..., page 70:
- His gauntlets have embroidered cuffs; there are gads or gadlings on the fingers.
- 1858, Edward Cave, The Gentleman's Magazine: Or, Monthly Intelligencer: Volume the first [-fifth], for the year 1731 [-1735] ..., page 215:
- Another curious device was that of arming the knuckles of the gauntlets with spikes (gads or gadlings), by which they became weapons as well as defences.
- 1992, Sir Guy Francis Laking, A Record of European Armour and Arms Through Seven Centuries, page 214:
- On both finger joints are gads, which are beautifully faceted and brought to a point.
Derived terms
Translations
See also
- Baal-gad (etymologically unrelated)
Anagrams
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Pronunciation
Noun
gád m (plural gadoowá f or gaditté f or gadoodá f)
Declension
References
- E. M. Parker, R. J. Hayward (1985) “gad”, in An Afar-English-French dictionary (with Grammatical Notes in English), University of London, →ISBN
- Mohamed Hassan Kamil (2015) L’afar: description grammaticale d’une langue couchitique (Djibouti, Erythrée et Ethiopie), Paris: Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (doctoral thesis)
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Pronunciation
Verb
gad
Etymology
Noun
gad
- withe
- 1689 James Farewell, The Irish Hudibras, or, Fingallian prince taken from the sixth book of Virgil's Æneids, and adapted to the present times. (Appendix: "Alphabetical Table" of "Fingallian Words, or Irish Phrases"):
- Gad,
- A With.
- 1689 James Farewell, The Irish Hudibras, or, Fingallian prince taken from the sixth book of Virgil's Æneids, and adapted to the present times. (Appendix: "Alphabetical Table" of "Fingallian Words, or Irish Phrases"):
Etymology
Noun
gad
Related terms
- gadò
- gadyen
Verb
gad
- Alternative form of gade (“to watch”)
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