quad

Shortened, via clipping or abbreviation, from various English terms. Ultimately related to Latin quattuor (“4”); compare quadri-, quadruple.

The typography senses are from the abbreviation quad. for obsolete quadrat; the keyboard command comes from the verb sense.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /kwɑd/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kwɒd/

• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -ɒd

quad (plural quads)

1. (typography, obsolete) Abbreviation of quadrat. [18th to 19th century]
   1. (letterpress typography) A blank metal block used to fill short lines of type. [from 1780s]

      Synonyms: em space, (obsolete) quadrat

      • 1853 April 16, Charles Dickens, Household Words‎, number 160, page 148:

        “Quadrats, sir. We call 'em quads.” . . . Quads are the spaces left between the paragraphs that come white on the paper. If you look here, at this page that is set-up, you will see that they are deeper than the spaces left between the words and letters—regular little trenches.

      • 1979, Marshall Lee, Bookmaking, page 110:

        Horizontal spacing is further divided into multiples and fractions of the em. The multiples are called quads. The fractions are called spaces.

      • 2005, Phil Baines, Andrew Haslam, Type & Typography, 2nd edition, page 91:

        Other larger spaces – known as quads – were used to space out lines.

   2. (printing slang) A joke used to fill long days of setting type.
   3. (typography, phototypesetting and digital typesetting) A keyboard command which aligns text with the left or right margin, or centred between them. In combination, as quad left, quad right, or quad centre.
2. (informal) A quadrangle (quadrangular courtyard). [from 1780s]
   • 1880, William Blades, The Enemies of Books, page 38:

     Gilt-backed books on gilded shelf or table caught the eye, and as you turned your glance from the luxurious interiors to the well-shorn lawn in the Quad with its classic fountain also gilded by sunbeams, the mental vision saw plainly written over the whole "The Union of Luxury and Learning."

   • 2014, Walker Orenstein, for Norwest Asian Weekly, Cherry trees from Japan to grace UW campus‎:

     Every spring, the quad on the University of Washington (UW) campus transforms from a peaceful green space to a bustling habitat for hundreds of shuttering cameras, families, and onlookers.

   • 2021 November 21, Nicole Sperling, “How Do You Make Teen Comedies Today? Buy a High School.”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     The teenage couple is lounging on the lawn outside a high school, taking advantage of a free period between classes in that age-old way: making out on the quad.

3. (colloquial, dated) A horse, from colloquial or humorous quadruped specifically for horse. [from 1850s]
   • 1934, John Buchan, The Free Fishers, page 258:

     The quads is all right, barrin’ that the bay is blind o’ the left eye, and the chestnut a bit weak in the off fore.

4. Something that is quadruple (four times) the usual amount, number, etc.
   1. A poster advertising a cinematic film release, measuring forty by thirty inches, four times the area of crown paper. [c. 1910]
   2. (skating) A quadruple, a jump with four revolutions in the air.
   3. A serving of four shots of espresso; (attributive) containing four shots of espresso.
   4. A skate with four wheels.
      • 2018, Elicia Hyder, Lights Out Lucy: Roller Derby 101:

        These are the quads I recommend for newbies.

      • 2014, Brigitte Legendre, A Skater's Business, page 16:

        When you can skate, inline, ice, quads are all equally enjoyable as long as they are of good enough quality.

5. Clipping of quadruplet (“a set of four; one of a set of four”). [from 1890s]
   • 1991, Alain Gelbman, Mah Jong: One Step at a Time, page 7:

     The Pair, Triples, and Quads can be formed with both Honor and Suit Tiles.

   • 1999, Jennifer Kelley, Great Book of Domino Games, page 70:

     Object of the game: To use up all the tiles by playing them in quads. A quad is four consecutive numbers running in ascending or descending order, and played in a straight line.

   • 2002, Experiments with Plants: teacher’s guide, page 18:

     Each person on the team could be exclusively responsible for taking care of and keeping records for one set of four plants (a quad).

   1. (electronics, telecommunications) A group of four insulated wires twisted together to form two circuits of two wires each. [from 1920s]
   2. (radio) A quad antenna, a directional radio antenna consisting of multiple loop antennas. [from 1930s]
   3. (informal) A quadruplet, one of four babies born during the same birth.
   4. (chess) A kind of round-robin tournament between four players, where each participant plays every other participant once.
   5. (Mormonism) The Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price bound in a single volume.
   6. (poker slang, attributive) Of or relating to quads (four of a kind).
6. (informal) The quadriceps muscle. [from 1950s]
   • 2010, Adam Garett, “Fried Hams”, in Reps!, 17:23:

     Aesthetics aside, if you train your quads while neglecting your hamstrings, you're setting yourself up for an eventual injury.

7. (informal) A quadriplegic person. [from 1970s]
   • 2005, Nancy H. Blose, Behind the Curtain: Living as a Quadriplegic, Lulu Publishing, published 2015, →ISBN, pages 74–75:

     The worse was the realization that this was my new reality. This too was Bill's debut as a husband of a quad and his first social gathering since June 22.

8. A unit of energy equivalent to a quadrillion BTU (10¹⁵ BTU). [from 1970s]
9. (informal) A quadcopter.
   • 2017 May 19, Ed Darack, “A Brief History of Quadrotors”, in Air & Space Magazine‎:

     Today you can buy quadrotor drones—also known as quadcopters—of just about any kind, for just about any price. The extremely wealthy can buy gold-plated quads, and the rest of us can buy tiny plastic ones.

10. (informal, computer graphics) A quadrilateral.
    • 2010, Tony Mullen, Claudio Andaur, Blender Studio Projects: Digital Movie-Making, page 91:

      Tris and quads have different areas of functionality. In real-time graphics, tris are the norm because they provide the most basic geometric representations of planes.

11. (informal) Quadruplex videotape.
12. (informal) A quadrupel beer.
13. A quad bike.

quad (not comparable)

1. Quadruple, four times the usual size or quantity. [from 1880s]
   • 1896, Sunderland. Re Mawson, Phillips & Co., Ld., in Liquidation‎:

     Printing Plant Machinery, Type, Material, Fittings, Stock-in-Trade, Paper, &c., including QUAD-CROWN CYLINDER MACHINE, With Flyers, Riders, &c., by Miller & Richard.

   • 1998, Kip Ward, Mike van Mantgem, Axel Floyd, Quake for Nintendo 64 (Prima’s Unauthorized Game Secrets), page 23:

     Around the corner waits a Quad Damage rune, which you can activate before returning to the Teleporter and heading for the Gold Key.

   • 2014, Brian Johnson, 21 Best Tablets for You This Holiday Season of 2014, page 44:

     With Mali-400 MP4 GPU, 2GB of RAM and a quad-core Cortex-A9 processor, this tablet is more than capable to handle even the latest graphics intense games

   • 2015 May, Chris Woodward, “Yamaha 190 FSH”, in Sport Fishing, volume 30, page 85:

     SeaStar Solutions, which makes systems for twin- and triple-outboard powered boats, now offers its Optimus electronic power steering (EPS) for single- and quad-powered boats.

2. (paper) Quadrille, marked with squares.

• quad paper

quad (third-person singular simple present quads, present participle quadding, simple past and past participle quadded)

1. (typography, letterpress typography, transitive, intransitive) To fill spaces in a line of type with quads. Also quad out.
2. (typography, phototypesetting and digital typesetting, transitive, intransitive) To align text with the left or right margin, or centre it.
3. (transitive) To twist four individually insulated conductors together as two pairs of twisted wires that are then twisted together.
   • 1901, Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, page 232:

     Can you "quad" the cable?

   • 1961, Telecommunications, page 690:

     The star quadding of the wires ensures a reduction in the diameters of cables and their weight […]

   • 1965, Telephone Cable Splicing: Cable Terminations and Cable Repairs, United States. Department of the Army, page 906:

     The conductors in quadded cables are tinned and may also be enameled.

4. (intransitive) To ride a quad bike.

• quadr-, quadri-
• quadru-
• quin
• Quad (unit) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From English quad.

• IPA^(key): /kwad/ [kwað̞]
• Rhymes: -ad

quad inan

1. quad bike

• "quad" in Euskaltzaindiaren Hiztegia [Dictionary of the Basque Academy], euskaltzaindia.eus

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencian) [ˈkwat]

quad m (plural quads)

1. Clipping of quadricicle.

From English quad.

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quad m (plural quads, diminutive quadje n)

1. quad, quad bike

quad m (invariable)

1. quad bike

quad

1. first/third-person singular past indicative of quedan

Unadapted borrowing from English quad.

• IPA^(key): /kwat/

• Audio

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• Rhymes: -at
• Syllabification: quad
• Homophone: kład

quad m inan

1. quad bike

   Synonyms: czterokołowiec, wszędołaz, kład

• quad in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• quad in Polish dictionaries at PWN

• quaid, queid
• quyed (dialectal)

Inherited from Middle English qued, from Old English cwēad.

• (Early Scots) IPA^(key): [kwad]
• (Early Middle Scots) IPA^(key): [kwad]
• (Late Middle Scots) IPA^(key): [kwad]

quad (comparative quader)

1. (Middle Scots) evil, wicked, bad

Only the comparative is attested.

• “quad”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.

quad f (plural quads)

1. all-terrain vehicle

• “quad”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014