▪ I. wad, n.1
(wɒd)
Also 7 wadd(e, wade.
[Of obscure origin; the identity of the word in all the senses is not quite certain.
With sense 3 cf. mod.Sw. vadd, G., Du. watte, Fr. ouate (whence It. ovatta), wadding; the etymology and mutual relation of these words are unknown.]
1. a. A bundle of hay or straw (occas. of hemp, etc.); esp. a small bundle of hay, peas, beans, vetches, etc., made at the time of cutting or reaping; a portion of a sheaf of cereal plants or of reed. Now dial.
| 1573 Twyne æneid xi. 26 Hereon the lad aloft on wad of cuntrey straw they lay. 1596 Spenser Hymn Heav. Love 226 Where he encradled was In simple cratch, wrapt in a wad of hay. 1601 Holland Pliny xvii. ix. I. 508 When it [a crop of lupines] is cut downe, to make it into wads or bottles, and so to burie them at the roots of trees. 1620 Markham Farew. Husb. ix. 65 Laying before the Plow long wades or roules of the straw of Lupyns, Pease, or else Fetches,..you shall turne the furrowes..vpon the waddes. 1622 J. Taylor (Water-P.) Arrant Thief (1625) C 2, A wispe of Rushes, or a clod of land, Or any wadde of Hay that's next to hand They'l steale. 1647 Trapp Comm. 1 Cor. vii. 31 In the Popes inthronization,..a piece of tow, or wad of straw is set on fire before him, and one appointed to say, Sic transit gloria mundi. 1693 Evelyn De la Quint. Compl. Gard. Dict., To wrap up Plants, or tender Trees with Wads or Wisps of Straw. 1706 Estcourt Fair Example iii. i, You shall find her upon a Wad of Straw, with one Brat at her Breast. 1763 Museum Rust. I. 24 The reapers lay it on the land in wads as they call them, or parcels about the quantity of half a sheaf of wheat unbound. 1799 Wolcot (P. Pindar) Nil Admirari iii. iii. Wks. 1816 III. 447 At times she finds of hemp a little wad, Begs some young Levite spin it. 1807 Sir R. C. Hoare Tour Irel. 302 A wad of straw, or perhaps heath laid on a damp clay floor. 1813 Vancouver Agric. Devon 123 A cylindrical pearl barley machine, is also used to cleanse the wad of its smut. 1886 W. Somerset Word-bk., Wad, a bundle of straw tied up by a thatcher... A bundle of reed less than a full sheaf of 28 lbs. weight is also called a wad. |
| fig. 1607 Heywood Fayre Mayde Exch. i. C 2 b, Yonder bundle of sighes, yonder wad of grones. |
b. A heap; also, a swath. dial.
| 1750 Ellis Mod. Husb. IV. iii. 51 [To mow vetches] cock them in little wads as we do the Clover-grass. 1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. II. 589 It is the usual practice to put them [cut pea crops] up into small heaps, termed wads, which are formed by setting small parcels against each other. 1856 J. C. Morton Cycl. Agric. II. 726 Wad, a heap of beans or pease laid out to dry, previous to binding. In the county of Devon, applied to a handful of thatch. 1906 Times 25 June 14/4 The wet wads formed by the horse rake are avoided. |
2. a. A small bundle of a soft, flexible material; esp. for use as a plug, pad, or rubber.
| 1580 Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong, Torche..a wad of strawe or cloutes that wenches vse to put on their heds when they cary any thing. 1622 Mabbe tr. Aleman's Guzman d'Alf. ii. 355 It was injoyned me..of old ends of Ragges, or of Flax and Tow, to make wads and wisps for those that goe to the Long-house. 1752 Sir H. Beaumont Crito 17 The vast Wad of Linen that they [women] carry upon their Head. 1781 Hayley Tri. Temper iv. 85 She on the types her inky wad let fall. 1861 Musgrave By-Roads 173 The neck of the flask being closed with only a mere wad of cotton. 1887 Poor Nellie (1888) 398 I've to go about with wads of cotton⁓wool ready in my pocket for my two ears. |
b. Something rolled up tightly, as a roll of bank notes. Chiefly U.S.
| 1778 Exmoor Scolding Gloss. (E.D.S.) 151 A garment rumbled [sic] up to a Wad, with many Plaits and Wrinkles. 1864 Sala in Daily Tel. 27 Sept., A little wallet containing one or more dollar bills, or at least a wad of fractional currency. 1888 Bow-Bells Weekly 22 June 396 Never roll gloves into each other in a wad, for they will never look as well after. 1890 Gunter Miss Nobody ii. (1891) 24 Handing Everett a wad of greenbacks. 1899 F. H. Burnett De Willoughby Claim x. 132 He..finally rolled his paper into a hard wad and threw it at the counter. 1899 Crockett Kit Kennedy lii, MacWalter pulled a thick wad of bank notes out of his pocket. 1908 S. E. White Riverman xix, Dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief dampened into a tiny wad. |
| transf. 1895 Howells Impress. & Exp. (1896) 164 Such a small, dull wad of out-worn womanhood!—her grey old head bent upon her knees, and her withered arms wound in her thin shawl. 1913 Sat. Rev. 22 Mar. 365/2 He will find them well padded by wads of extracts from second-hand authorities. |
† 3. A material composed of matted fibres of silk, raw cotton, etc. = wadding 3. Obs.
| 1540 Act 32 Hen. VIII c. 14 Item for every tonne Tolose wadde accompting viij hole bales..for a tonne xx s. 1695 P. Motteux St. Olon's Morocco 139 The Traffick of Provence consists in..Velvet, Cottons, Wadds [Fr. cottonines], and other Commodities from the Levant. 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Wad, a sort of Flocks of Silk, course Flannel, or Cotton. 1761 Ann. Reg., Chron. 132/1 The plant known by the name of..Asclepias... From the silky wad it affords we [in France] call it Soyeuse. |
4. a. A plug of tow, cloth, etc., a disk of felt or cardboard, to retain the powder and shot in position in charging a gun or cartridge.
| 1667 Phil. Trans. II. 476 Another [experiment]..is a Wooden Tampion..hollow'd towards the Bullet,..and..hollow likewise towards the Powder, and serving instead of a Wadd. 1669 Sturmy Mariner's Mag. v. xii. 68 Put the Powder home gently, and after put in a good Wad..; then put in the Shot.., and after him another Wad. 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1780), Wad, a quantity of old rope⁓yarns, hay, &c. rolled firmly together into the form of a ball, and used to confine the shot or shell..in the breech of a piece of artillery. 1856 ‘Stonehenge’ Brit. Sports i. i. ii. §5. 24 After using the powder-flask..drive down..a single piece of wadding; then pour in the charge of shot, drive down another wad, [etc.]. 1862 F. A. Griffiths Artil. Man. (ed. 9) 112 No. 5 serves No. 3 with projectiles, wads, if necessary, and traverses. 1879 Cassell's Techn. Educ. I. 194/1 The escape of gas was prevented by means of a felt wad attached to the back of the cartridge. 1881 Greener Gun 300 Wads are punched out of sheets of various materials by cutters fixed in a press. Those most commonly used are made of felts, cardboard, or jute. 1890 D. Davidson Mem. Long Life ii. 34 We..rowed too closely past the Victory as she was firing her royal salute, and one of her wads just cleared our heads. |
b. In fig. phr. to shoot one's wad, to do all that one can do. Cf. to have shot one's bolt s.v. shoot v. 21 b. colloq. (chiefly U.S.).
| 1914 Dialect Notes IV. 112 Shoot one's wad, to do or say what one can. 1970 A. Cameron et al. Computers & O.E. Concordances 31 Well, I'm really not an expert on it. I've practically shot my wad. 1971 B. Malamud Tenants 8, I want to be thought of as a going concern, not a freak who had published a good first novel and shot his wad. |
5. a. A lump of a soft or plastic substance. rare.
| 1775 Sheridan Duenna iii. vii, Eyes like two dead beetles in a wad of brown dough! 1838 Thackeray Fashnable Fax Wks. 1900 XIII. 254 The haldermin, who was helpin the tuttle, puts on Biffeter's plate a wad of green fat. |
b. A mass, heap, large quantity. Sc. and north.
| 1828 Craven Gloss., Wad, a large quantity. ‘We've a wad o' hay to year.’ 1915 Chamb. Jrnl. 12 June 442/1 True, we haven't got a great wad of it on hand; but I don't like the idea of that silver being on the premises. |
c. A bun, a cake; also, something to eat, a sandwich. slang (orig. Services').
| 1919 War Terms in Athenæum 1 Aug. 695/1 Wad, a bun. 1927 T. E. Lawrence Let. 8 Feb. (1938) 506 No wads, so I'm able to do without money. 1937 D. Jones In Parenthensis 4 We've got too many buns—and all those wads. 1942 G. Kersh Nine Lives Bill Nelson i. 3 I'm in a caff, getting a tea 'n' a wad. 1960 ‘A. Burgess’ Doctor is Sick 226 Give us a bob for a cuppa and a wad, guv. 1973 Guardian 2 June 13/4 He found himself..in Kashmir sharing a char and wad with Sikh pilots. 1983 Verbatim Autumn 8/2 Like a ‘pick’, a ‘wad’ is also eaten standing up. A ‘wad’, however, is a solitary piece of inferior, if not disgusting food. The diner falls upon it with little pleasure, merely to quiet the beast in his belly. |
6. Ceramics.
| 1825 J. Nicholson Oper. Mech. 468 When a sagger is filled with clay ware, on its outer edges are placed thick pieces of coarse clay, called wads from their being employed to wedge or closely join the interstice between two saggers. 1891 Century Dict., Wad, 3. In ceram., a small piece of finer clay used to cover the body of an inferior material in some varieties of earthenware; especially, the piece doubled over the edge of a vessel. |
7. attrib. and Comb.: (sense 4) as wad gauge, wad punch, wad room; wadcutter chiefly U.S., a bullet designed to cut a neat hole in a paper range target; wad hook, (a) a spiral tool for withdrawing wads or charges from guns; (b) Mining (see quot. 1881).
| 1957 Amer. Speech XXXII. 195 *Wadcutter, a lead bullet designed to be used on paper targets and having no ogive but abrupt shoulders so that a full caliber hole is punched in a target. 1981 D. Boggis Time to Betray xi. 61 A potential opportunity to..loose the five rounds of .32 wadcutter from the Walther GSP precision automatic. |
| 1828 Spearman Brit. Gunner (ed. 2) 73 *Wad Gauges. |
| 1611 Florio, Cauafieno, Gunners call it a *wad-hooke. 1766 Entick London IV. 344 Rammers, hand-spikes, wad-hooks. 1879 Man. Artill. Exerc. 199 The shell extractor and wadhook [are placed] outside the pit. 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss., Wad-hook. A tool with two spiral steel blades for removing fragments from the bottom of deep bore-holes. |
| 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., *Wad-punch, a tubular steel punch used for cutting gun-wads, etc. |
| 1756 Gentl. Mag. XXVI. 426 His gunner concealed 43 barrels of powder in the *wad room, covering them with wads and lumber. |
▪ II. wad, n.2
(wɒd)
In 7 wadd.
[Perh. cogn. w. ON. vað-r masc., measuring line, MSw. vaþi wk. masc., boundary-line between properties (cf. sense 2 below), or with OE. wadan to go, wade v.]
1. Surveying. A straight line taken in measuring from one mark to another. ? Obs.
| 1610 W. Folkingham Feudigr. ii. iv. 53 These dimensions are found or performed either Cominus or Eminus... The first..needes no amplification, but for precise keeping in the Wadd or right line. The Wadd is delineated either to a marke in sight or out of sight. If the First; let the Chaine⁓leaders Wadd vpon the marke by some intermediall eminence and at the setting down of euery pricke, let each man waue his mate into the right Wadd. |
2. dial. ‘A line, esp. one marked out between two parcels of land’ (Eng. Dial. Dict.); also see quots.
| 1869 Lonsdale Gloss., Wad, a line or rank. 1886 S.W. Linc. Gloss., Wad, a mark set up as a guide to plough straight by. Hence Line, order, position. 1889 N.W. Linc. Gloss., Wad, a mark in shooting, ploughing, land measuring, &c. |
b. Way or course of travel, track. lit. and fig.
| 1854 A. E. Baker Northampt. Gloss., Wad. 3. A way or beaten track, a line of conduct pertinaciously adhered to. ‘He goes on in the old wad,’ i.e. in the same manner as formerly. |
3. Comb.: wad-staff, -stick (see quots.).
| 1856 J. C. Morton Cycl. Agric. II. 726 Wadstaff, (Notts.), guide staff to plough by. 1889 N.W. Linc. Gloss., Wad⁓staff, wad-stick, a tall white wand painted with rims of various colours, used as a mark for ploughmen in setting out furrows. |
▪ III. wad, n.3
(wɒd)
Also 7 wadt, 8 wadd.
[Of obscure origin.]
1. A local name for plumbago or black lead; also called black wad. Also dial. a black-lead pencil (see Eng. Dial. Dict.).
| 1614 in Mem. Lit. & Philos. Soc. Manch. Ser. ii. (1819) III. 169 Except the wad holes and wad, commonly called black cawke, within the commons of Seatollor, or elsewhere within the commons and wastes of the said manor [of Borrowdale]. 1698 Plot Black-lead in Phil. Trans. XX. 183 The Mineral Substance, called, Black Lead..found only at Keswick in Cumberland, and there called, Wadt, or Kellow. 1836 Penny Cycl. V. 225 (Borrowdale) The most remarkable product of the valley is graphite, plumbago, or black-lead (provincially wad). 1872 Jenkinson Guide Eng. Lakes (1879) 129 The lead, or plumbago, locally termed ‘wad,’..is the best material ever discovered for making lead pencils. |
2. An impure earthy ore of manganese.
| 1783 Phil. Trans. LXXIII. 284 Some Experiments upon the Ochra friabilis nigro fusca of Da Costa..; and called by the Miners of Derbyshire, Black Wadd. 1796 Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) II. 465 Mr. Wedgewood dissolved a quantity of black wadd in a large quantity of nitrous acid heated. 1839 Ure Dict. Arts, Wadd, is the provincial name..of an ore of manganese in Derbyshire, which consists of the peroxide of that metal, associated with nearly its own weight of oxide of iron. 1884 Athenæum 16 Aug. 212/3 The not very interesting manganese mineral wad. |
3. Comb., as (sense 1) wad-hole, wad-lead, wad-mine, wad-pencil.
| 1614 *Wad hole [see 1]. |
| 1780 G. Jars Voy. Metall. II. 554 (Philol. Soc. Trans. 1908, p. 148) Mine de plomb pour les crayons nommés Black-lead or *Wad-Lead. |
| 1747 Gentl. Mag. XVII. 583 *Wadd mines in the Cumberland Dialect, signifies the black-lead mines. 1836 Penny Cycl. V. 225 (Borrowdale) The wad mine. |
| 1825 Brockett N.C. Gloss. s.v., A *wad pencil. |
▪ IV. † wad, n.4 Obs. rare—1.
Origin and sense obscure: only in proverbial phrase, app. meaning ‘in that course there is danger’.
| 1524 Wolsey in St. Papers Hen. VIII, IV. 92 Praying you eftsones, that the ereccion of the yong King be not dilayed by any diet to be kept upon the Bordre or other communicacion; for in that pad there lyeth a wad. |
▪ V. wad, v.1
(wɒd)
Also 6 wadde.
[f. wad n.1]
I. To form into a wad.
1. trans. To lay up (the cut haulm of beans, peas, etc.) in bundles.
| 1677 Plot Oxfordsh. ix. §101. 256 After the sithe they wad both Beans and Peas. 1733 W. Ellis Chiltern & Vale Farm. 341 They take care to Wad them [sc. beans] as soon as Mown, and put them into single small Parcels. 1778 W. H. Marshall Minutes Agric., Observ. 93 In dry weather, Pease properly wadded with a Prong are much sooner ready to carry than those left in hard bundles by the Foot and Sithe. 1805 R. W. Dickson Pract. Agric. II. 891 When..crops of this sort that have run to seed,..are left..it is the usual practice to cut and wad them in the same manner as for peas. 1813 T. Batchelor View Agric. Bedfordsh. 108 (E.D.D.) The process of wadding, and gleaning beans..is rather a tedious one. |
2. To press (loose or fibrous material) into a small compass or into a close, compact mass; U.S. to roll up tightly. Also with up.
| 1675 Evelyn Terra (1776) 74 If you lay about them [sc. the roots] any fern-brakes or other trash capped with a little Earth..let it not be Wadded too close. 1896 N.Y. Weekly Witness 23 Dec. 16/4 A most peculiar cholera-remedy was in use in Persia. It consisted in wadding-up a leaf from the Koran and forcing it down the patient's throat. 1915 G. S. Porter M. O'Halloran viii, ‘Can you help me?’ ‘Sure!’ said Mickey, wadding his cap into his back pocket. |
3. transf. To pack (persons) closely.
| 1850 Thackeray Pendennis lviii, An honest holiday-maker with his family wadded into a tax-cart. |
II. To furnish with or as with a wad or wadding.
4. To put a wad in (a gun, a cartridge).
| 1579 Digges Stratiot. 113 His Gunner..to wadde and ramme, to cleanse, scoure, and coole the Peeces. 1881 Greener Gun 301 When loaded with shot, the cartridges are wadded in the Erskine machine. 1894 Crockett Mad Sir Uchtred 83 He had wadded it [sc. a gun] with three leaves of the Bible. |
5. To line, fill out, pad, as with wadding; to quilt.
| 1759 J. G. Cooper Ver-Vert iv. 212 His skin with sugar being wadded, With liquid fires his entrails burn'd. 1788 Cowper Gratitude 11 This wheel-footed studying chair,..Wide-elbow'd, and wadded with hair. 1842 Thackeray Miss Tickletoby's Lect. iii, Straight the King's great chair was brought him..Languidly he sunk into it, it was comfortably wadded. 1846 ― Bk. Snobs xiv, Lord Glenlivat..playfully wadded the insides of the boots with cobbler's wax. 1848 ― Lett. 1 Nov., You say your prayers in carved stalls wadded with velvet cushions. 1862 C. A. Collins Cruise upon Wheels xxiv. (1863) 413 My thick flannel dressing-gown, lined and wadded. 1883 M. B. Betham-Edwards Disarmed xxiii, She wore a loose gown of crimson satin, wadded after the fashion of the olden time. |
| fig. 1871 Geo. Eliot Middlem. xx, If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life,..we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity. |
† 6. ? To rub with a wad. Obs.
| 1688 Holme Armoury iii. xix. (Roxb.) 184/2 Wad or wash him [sc. a horse] round. |
7. To plug (the ears) with wads.
| 1876 ‘Ouida’ Winter City iii, They have wadded their ears and..would not hear. |
▪ VI. wad, v.2
(wɒd)
In 7 wadd.
[f. wad n.2]
intr. To walk with the chain in a straight line from one mark to another in land-surveying.
| 1610 W. Folkingham Feudigr. ii. iv. 53 Let the Chaine⁓leaders Wadd vpon the marke by some intermediall eminence. 1688 Holme Armoury iii. 139/1 Geometrical Terms used in Surveying and Measuring of Lands... Wadding, keeping in a right Line. 1869 Lonsdale Gloss., Wad, to set out a line, in land-surveying or engineering, by putting in a series of stakes or stubs. |
▪ VII. wad
see wed, woad; also will v.