Definition of "gad"

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.

1905, Edith Wharton, chapter 13, in The House of Mirth

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.

1852, Alice Cary, Clovernook ....‎

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

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

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.

1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter .”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951

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.

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

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

1913, George Gordon, The Auld Clay Biggin

Ist yoakes and bowes and gad and yoaksticks there?

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

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.

c. 1844, Prairie Farmer

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.

1885 December 17, Detroit Free Press‎

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!

1888, “Robin Spraggon's Auld Grey Mare”, in The Monthly Chronicle of North-country Lore and Legend, page 171

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, […]

1908, Folklore Society (Great Britain), Publications, page 288

And we'll prepare our limber gads,Lang lines, and braw brass wheels;

1836, A Collection of Right Merrie Garlands for North Country Anglers, page 4

Seek out thy tackle, thy creel and thy gad.

1876, Armstrong, Wanny Blossoms, page 33

Woe to the lad / without a rowen-tree gad.

1879, William Henderson, Folklore Society (Great Britain), Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders

We'll splice oor gads nigh Barra Mill, Beneath yon auld birk tree.

1896, Proudlock, Borderland Muse, page 268

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

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, [Act IV, scene i]

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

2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 327

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.

1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, Book XV

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

1677–1683, Joseph Moxon, “(please specify the page)”, in Mechanick Exercises, or The Doctrine of Handy-Works, […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Joseph Moxon, published 1678–1683

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 […]

1836, Walter Scott, Guy Mannering, Or, The Astrologer: With the Author's Last Notes and Additions, page 372

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

1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, page 146

Sometimes we see the knuckles ornamented with gads or gadlings.

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

His gauntlets have embroidered cuffs; there are gads or gadlings on the fingers.

1842, Ecclesiological Society, Illustrations of Monumental Brasses ..., page 70

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.

1858, Edward Cave, The Gentleman's Magazine: Or, Monthly Intelligencer: Volume the first [-fifth], for the year 1731 ..., page 215

On both finger joints are gads, which are beautifully faceted and brought to a point.

1992, Sir Guy Francis Laking, A Record of European Armour and Arms Through Seven Centuries, page 214