n. [ OE. gad, Icel. gaddr goad, sting; akin to Sw. gadd sting, Goth. gazds, G. gerte switch. See Yard a measure. ] 1. The point of a spear, or an arrowhead. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A pointed or wedge-shaped instrument of metal, as a steel wedge used in mining, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

I will go get a leaf of brass,
And with a gad of steel will write these words. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. A sharp-pointed rod; a goad. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. A spike on a gauntlet; a gadling. Fairholt. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. A wedge-shaped billet of iron or steel. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

Flemish steel . . . some in bars and some in gads. Moxon. [ 1913 Webster ]

6. A rod or stick, as a fishing rod, a measuring rod, or a rod used to drive cattle with. [ Prov. Eng. Local, U.S. ] Halliwell. Bartlett. [ 1913 Webster ]

Upon the gad, upon the spur of the moment; hastily. [ Obs. ] “All this done upon the gad!” Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. i. [ imp. & p. p. Gadded; p. pr. & vb. n. Gadding. ] [ Prob. fr. gad, n., and orig. meaning to drive about. ] To walk about; to rove or go about, without purpose; hence, to run wild; to be uncontrolled. “The gadding vine.” Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? Jer. ii. 36. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A gadder [ Colloq. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Zool.) The gadfly. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. One who roves about idly, a rambling gossip. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. & n. Going about much, needlessly or without purpose. [ 1913 Webster ]

Envy is a gadding passion, and walketh the streets. Bacon. [ 1913 Webster ]

The good nuns would check her gadding tongue. Tennyson. [ 1913 Webster ]

Gadding car, in quarrying, a car which carries a drilling machine so arranged as to drill a line of holes. [ 1913 Webster ]

adv. In a roving, idle manner. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Disposed to gad. -- Gad"dish*nes, n. “Gaddishness and folly.” Abp. Leighton. [1913 Webster]

n. [ Cf. Cod the fish. ] (Zool.) (a) A small British fish (Motella argenteola) of the Cod family. (b) A pike, so called at Moray Firth; -- called also gead. [ Prov. Eng. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n.; pl. Gadflies [ Gad + fly. ] (Zool.) Any dipterous insect of the genus Oestrus, and allied genera of botflies. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ The sheep gadfly (Oestrus ovis) deposits its young in the nostrils of sheep, and the larvæ develop in the frontal sinuses. The common species which infests cattle (Hypoderma bovis) deposits its eggs upon or in the skin where the larvæ or bots live and produce sores called wormels. The gadflies of the horse produce the intestinal parasites called bots. See Botfly, and Bots. The true horseflies are often erroneously called gadflies, and the true gadflies are sometimes incorrectly called breeze flies. [ 1913 Webster ]

Gadfly petrel (Zool.), one of several small petrels of the genus Oestrelata. [ 1913 Webster ]