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gad - What does it mean?

Definition of 'gad'

English

Etymology 1

Taboo deformation of (God).

Interjection

(en-interj)
  • 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.
    Derived terms
    * egads * egad

    Etymology 2

    (etyl) .

    Verb

    (gadd)
  • 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.
  • *
    • Synonyms
    * gallivant
    Derived terms
    * gadabout * gaddish, gaddishness

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • 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.
  • (obsolete) A metal bar.
  • * 1485 , Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur , 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 .
  • 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
  • (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.
  • A spike on a gauntlet; a gadling.
    • (Fairholt)
  • (UK|US|dialect) A rod or stick, such as a fishing rod, a measuring rod, or a rod used to drive cattle with.
    • (Halliwell)
    (Bartlett)

    Anagrams

    * ----

    Similar to 'gad'

    good, god, goad, gd, gaud, gud, goud, gcd, geed, gid, gawd, gewd, gedd, ghod