Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To move about restlessly or with little purpose, especially in search of pleasure or amusement. synonym: wander.
  • noun A pointed tool, such as a spike or chisel, used for breaking rock or ore.
  • noun A goad, as for prodding cattle.
  • transitive verb To break up (ore, for example) with a gad.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To fasten with a gad-nail.
  • In mining, to break up or loosen with the gad; use the gad upon.
  • To flit about restlessly; move about uneasily or with excitement.
  • To ramble about idly, from trivial curiosity or for gossip.
  • Hence To ramble or rove; wander, as in thought or speech; straggle, as in growth.
  • noun The act of gadding or rambling about: used in the phrase on or upon the gad.
  • noun A measuring-rod for land; a measure of length varying, in different districts, from nine or ten to as many as twenty feet.
  • noun A division of an uninclosed pasture, said to have been usually 6½ feet wide in Lincolnshire.
  • noun A cord or rope made from the fibers of the osier.
  • noun The name of God, minced as an oath. Compare egad.
  • noun A point or pointed instrument, as a pointed bar of steel, a spear, or an arrowhead.
  • noun A sharp point affixed to a part of the armor, as the gauntlet, which could thus be used to deal a formidable blow.
  • noun A thick pointed nail; a gad-nail; specifically, in mining, a pointed tool used for loosening and breaking up rock or coal which has been shaken or thrown down by a blast, or which is loose and jointy enough to be got without the use of powder.
  • noun A wedge or ingot of steel or iron.
  • noun A stick, or rod of wood, sharpened to a point, or provided with a metal point, used to drive cattle with; a goad; hence, a slender stick or rod of any kind, especially one used for whipping.
  • noun A gadfly.
  • noun In old Scotch prisons, a round bar of iron crossing the condemned cell horizontally at the height of about six inches from the floor, and strongly built into the wall at both ends.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To walk about; to rove or go about, without purpose; hence, to run wild; to be uncontrolled.
  • noun The point of a spear, or an arrowhead.
  • noun A pointed or wedge-shaped instrument of metal, as a steel wedge used in mining, etc.
  • noun A sharp-pointed rod; a goad.
  • noun A spike on a gauntlet; a gadling.
  • noun obsolete A wedge-shaped billet of iron or steel.
  • noun Prov. Eng. Local, U.S. A rod or stick, as a fishing rod, a measuring rod, or a rod used to drive cattle with.
  • noun [Obs.] upon the spur of the moment; hastily.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • interjection An exclamatory interjection roughly equivalent to 'by God', 'goodness gracious', 'for goodness' sake'.
  • verb intransitive To move from one location to another in an apparently random and frivolous manner.
  • noun A sharp-pointed object; a goad.
  • noun obsolete A metal bar.
  • noun A pointed metal tool for breaking or chiselling rock, especially in mining.
  • noun dated, metallurgy An indeterminate measure of metal produced by a furnace, perhaps equivalent to the bloom, perhaps weighing around 100 pounds.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb wander aimlessly in search of pleasure
  • noun an anxiety disorder characterized by chronic free-floating anxiety and such symptoms as tension or sweating or trembling or lightheadedness or irritability etc that has lasted for more than six months
  • noun a sharp prod fixed to a rider's heel and used to urge a horse onward

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English gadden, to hurry.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old Norse gaddr.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Taboo deformation of God.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English gadden ("to hurry, to rush about").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old Norse gaddr ("goad, spike").

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Examples

Comments

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  • Northeast Alabama Regional Airport.

    October 29, 2008

  • "The ankles of a prisoner sentenced to death were secured within shackles which were connected, by a chain about four feet long, with a large iron ring which traveled on the gad. Watch-dogs are now sometimes fastened in a similar way."

    October 21, 2011