Dictionary

wad en · NOUN · etymology 1

Pronunciation

• (US) audio
• wŏd (Received-Pronunciation)
• /wɒd/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• wŏd (General-American)
• /wɑd/ (General-American)

Etymology

Probably short for Middle English wadmal (“woolen cloth”), from Old Norse váðmál (“woolen stuff”), from váð (“cloth”) + mál (“measure”). See wadmal. Cognate with Swedish vadd (“wadding, cotton wool”), German Wat, Watte (“wad, padding, cotton wool”), Dutch lijnwaad, gewaad, watten (“cotton wool”), West Frisian waad, Old English wǣd (“garment, clothing”) (English: weed). More at weed, meal.

Meanings

1. An amorphous, compact mass.
   • Our cat loves to play with a small wad of paper.
   • My first impulse was to get it[the chewing gum] into my mouth as quickly as possible, but I remembered where I was. I ran home, and on our front porch I examined my loot. The gum looked fresh. I sniffed it and it smelled all right. I licked it and waited for a while. When I did not die I crammed it into my mouth: Wrigley’s Double-Mint. When Jem came home he asked me where I got such a wad. I told him I found it. 1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:
2. A substantial pile (normally of money).
   • With a wad of cash like that, she should not have been walking round Manhattan.
   • The campfires provide enough plain old regular visible light to show this sorry affair for what it is: a bunch of demented Boy Scouts, a jamboree without merit badges or hygiene. With the IR supered on top of the visible, she can also see vague, spectral red faces out in the shadows where her unassisted eyes would only see darkness. These new Knight Visions cost her a big wad of her Mob drug-running money. Just the kind of thing Mom had in mind when she insisted Y.T. get a part-time job. 1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 243:
3. A soft plug or seal, particularly as used between the powder and pellets in a shotgun cartridge, or earlier on the charge of a muzzleloader or cannon.
   • "Bulleted revolver cartridges contain no wad. You are thinking of a shot-gun, sir." 1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados:
4. (slang) A sandwich.
   • Once we were all sat on the ground, drinking our tea and eating a cheese wad - that was all you could get - I asked where my mate Jackson was. Nobody had any idea but as he was required in the flight office we did a search. 2012 January 17, Deborah Lake, Growling Over The Oceans: Avro Shackleton: The Men and the Missions:
5. (slang, vulgar) An ejaculation of semen.
   • All at once, Steven let out a loud gasp, as his cock jerked violently in his hand and sent wad after wad of hot white sperm shooting out all over his chest and stomach. 2000, Ian Cappell, The Awakening, London: Prowler Books, →ISBN:
   • It's a strange thing this yellow liquid, the bodily fluid of a stranger. What was he thinking when he shot his wad? Is he somewhere now wondering about his sperm? Is he at this very moment wondering if a woman somewhere is inseminating with his seed? Well, we are! Here we are in Boston, and we are! 2003, Harlyn Aizley, Buying Dad: One Woman's Search for the Perfect Sperm Donor, Los Angeles, Calif.: Alyson Books, →ISBN, page 70:
   • Grabbing hold of his throbbing organ, he started to turn away from her, had second thoughts, and proceeded to shoot his wad, ejaculate all over the sweating, sultry body that was stretched out, languishing at his feet. 2008, Chaucer Malone, Miguk, the Holy Man, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 490:
   • When a man "blows his wad," at least two different things could have occurred: he either spent or lost all his money in a wager (his wad), or he spent or ejaculated his sperm (his wad). Thorne goes on to suggest that since at least the 1950s "blow," in this context, is a euphemism for "ejaculate." 2001, Peter F. Murphy, Studs, Tools, and the Family Jewels: Metaphors Men Live By, Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, →ISBN, page 44:

Forms

Deriveds

wadlike · junk wad · Joan the wad · shoot one's wad (ejaculate) · spit wad · wadcutter · bumwad · cuntwad · pop one's wad · wad hook (charge plug) · oily-wad · mobile wad · tightwad · get one's panties in a wad · jizzwad · blow one's wad (ejaculate) · cumwad (ejaculate) · snotwad

Synonyms

cumwad (an ejaculation of semen) · valet · cumload (an ejaculation of semen) · prop · load (an ejaculation of semen)

Translations (53)

ce герма (soft plug) · ar رِزْمَة (substantial pile (normally of money)) · fi mälli (ejaculate) · fr boule (compact mass) · fi tukku (substantial pile (normally of money)) · fr tampon (compact mass) · es fajo (substantial pile (normally of money)) · sv macka (slang: sandwich — see also sandwich) · fr étoupin (soft plug) · uk клейтух (soft plug) · ru комо́к (compact mass) · sv bunt (substantial pile (normally of money)) · bg изпразване (ejaculate) · cs chomáč (compact mass) · nl prop (compact mass) · nl prop (soft plug) · uk жмуток (compact mass) · sv sats (ejaculate) · fi setelinippu (substantial pile (normally of money)) · ja 固まり (compact mass) · fr bourre (soft plug) · he סְטֵפָה (substantial pile (normally of money)) · pl przybitka (soft plug) · de Vorladung (soft plug) · fi nippu (substantial pile (normally of money)) · sv tuss (compact mass) · pl flejtuch (soft plug) · cs žvanec (compact mass) · acm شَدَّة (substantial pile (normally of money)) · uk пиж (soft plug) · fr décharge (ejaculate) · ru па́чка (substantial pile (normally of money)) · fr paquet (substantial pile (normally of money)) · cs chuchvalec (compact mass) · sv förladdning (soft plug) · uk шматок (compact mass) · de Pfropfen (soft plug) · ru пыж (soft plug) · bg па́чка (substantial pile (normally of money)) · ja 束 (substantial pile (normally of money)) · fr liasse (substantial pile (normally of money)) · de Wichse (ejaculate) · fr bouchon (soft plug) · fi voikku (slang: sandwich — see also sandwich) · fa دسته (substantial pile (normally of money)) · fi tuppo (compact mass) · uk пачка (substantial pile (normally of money)) · fi tuppo (soft plug) · pl plik (banknotów) (substantial pile (normally of money)) · cs balík (substantial pile (normally of money)) · haw pōpō (compact mass) · de Vorschlag (soft plug) · cs ucpávka (soft plug)

wad en · VERB · etymology 1

Pronunciation

• (US) audio
• wŏd (Received-Pronunciation)
• /wɒd/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• wŏd (General-American)
• /wɑd/ (General-American)

Etymology

Probably short for Middle English wadmal (“woolen cloth”), from Old Norse váðmál (“woolen stuff”), from váð (“cloth”) + mál (“measure”). See wadmal. Cognate with Swedish vadd (“wadding, cotton wool”), German Wat, Watte (“wad, padding, cotton wool”), Dutch lijnwaad, gewaad, watten (“cotton wool”), West Frisian waad, Old English wǣd (“garment, clothing”) (English: weed). More at weed, meal.

Meanings

1. To crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball.
   • Mitch wadded the note, and tossed it over the cliff. 1957 May, Jim Thompson, Alfred Hitchcock's Suspense Magazine, page 10, column 1:
   • She stood just inside the door, wadding a black-bordered hand-kerchief in her small gloved hands […] 1930, Dashiell Hammett, chapter 11, in The Maltese Falcon, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, page 122:
   • […] if you lay any fearnbrakes or other trash about them to entertain the moisture, and skreen it from the heat, let it not be wadded so close, or suffer’d to lie so long, as to contract any mustiness, but rather loose and easie, that the Air may have free intercourse, and to break the more intense ardours of the scorching Sun-beams. 1676, John Evelyn, A Philosophical Discourse of Earth, London: John Martyn, page 181:
   • She wadded up the scrap of paper and threw it in the trash.
   • She wadded Marian into her chair, which was lumpy with garments in progressive stages of dirtiness, and tucked a towel around her neck. 1969, Margaret Atwood, chapter 25, in The Edible Woman, New York: Popular Library, published 1976, page 228:
2. (Ulster) To wager.
3. To insert or force a wad into.
   • to wad a gun
4. To stuff or line with some soft substance, or wadding, like cotton.
   • If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and 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. 1871, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book 2, Chapter 20:
   • Could you believe it possible that through such a night as this they choose to sleep under those wadded cotton coverlets, and dread not instantaneous asphixiation? 1851, Richard Francis Burton, chapter 1, in Goa, and the Blue Mountains, London: Richard Bentley, page 11:
   • to wad a cloak
   • […] upon his Body were several Flannel Wastcoats, a Cassock of thick Cloth, with a thick wadded Gown, and about his Shoulders the Quilt which he had taken from off the Bed. 1721, John Midriff, Observations on the Spleen and Vapours, London: J. Roberts, pages 7–8:

Forms

Deriveds

wadder · unwad

Translations (19)

ru скомкать (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · haw hoʻopōpō (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · bg смачквам на топка (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · cs zmačkat (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · fr rembourrer (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · de zerknüllen (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · fi puristaa (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · ru комкать (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · cs zmuchlat (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · de verkrumpeln (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · fa مچاله کردن (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · bg ватирам (to stuff with soft substance) · fr capitonner (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · cs vycpat (to stuff with soft substance) · fr boucher (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · fi rypistää (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · fi puristaa kokoon (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball) · ca embuatar (to stuff with soft substance) · fr rouler en boule (to crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball)

wad en · NOUN · etymology 2

Meanings

1. (countable, dialectal, uncountable) Plumbago, graphite.
   • Wad was worth the equivalent of £1,300 a tonne, and some people felt it was worth risking a whipping to smuggle it out. 2002, Victoria Finlay, Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox, Sceptre, published 2003, →ISBN, page 96:
2. (countable, uncountable) Any black manganese oxide or hydroxide mineral rich rock in the oxidized zone of various ore deposits.

Forms