goad

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“
The tiger turned its attention from Inza to Elsie, and the latter struck at it, as if the goad were a spear Frank Merriwell heard the click of a revolver at his side.

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Definitions (18)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A long stick with a pointed end used for prodding animals.
  2. noun An agent or means of prodding or urging; a stimulus.
  3. transitive verb To prod or urge with or as if with a long pointed stick.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (7)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (6)

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Examples (50)

  • It had never felt so much like a goad, like a jab so pointed he couldn't ignore it any longer. —  Chapter1Rabbit
  • You kick against the goad, and the GOAD will triumph. —  ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science
  • This indecision was a goad, a barb. —  The Dragon Painter
  • Starvation often was his goad, and some dark garret his abode, and there, when nights were long and chill, he sadly plied his creaking quill. —  Rippling Rhymes
  • They like to talk and drone and drool, to growing youths in Sunday school, and tell them that the poor man's lot is just the thing that hits the spot; to warn them of ambition's goad--they talk, and talk, but don't unload. —  Rippling Rhymes
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This word has been looked up 169 times.

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

quirt ·  rowel ·  incitement ·  gad

Used in the same contextWord Family

goad:   goaded
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English gode, from Old English gād.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. from Middle English gode, god, earlier gad (with long vowel), from Anglo-Saxon gād (not*gœd or *gădu), a goad (also in comp. gād-īsen, a goad, literally ‘goadiron’); the same word as English gad, from Middle English gadde, gad (with short vowel), from Icelandic gaddr = Swedish gadd, a goad, sting, = Old Danish gad, a gad, goad, gadde, a gadfly. The Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian forms are respectively contracted and assimilated forms of an orig. *gazd, appearing (with rhotacism) in the Anglo-Saxon gierd, gyrd, Middle English gerd, zerd, yerd, English yard, a rod, and in Goth, gazds, a goad, prick, sting (Greek κἐντρον: see center), = Latin hasta, a spear (later English hastate, haslet, etc.). See gad, ged, yard.
  2. from goad, n.
  3. apparently a corruption of gourd, in same sense.
  4. A variant of gaud.
 

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