Shortened, viaclipping or abbreviation, from various English terms. Ultimately related toLatinquattuor(“4”); comparequadri-,quadruple.

The typography senses are from the abbreviationquad. for obsoletequadrat; the keyboard command comes from the verb sense.

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

• Audio(General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes:-ɒd

quad (pluralquads)

1. (typography,obsolete)Abbreviation ofquadrat.[18th to 19th century]
   2. (letterpresstypography) Ablank metal block used to fill shortlines oftype.[from 1780s]

      Synonyms:em space,(obsolete)quadrat

      • 1853 April 16,Charles Dickens,Household Words‎^[1], number160, page148:

        “Quadrats, sir. We call 'emquads.” . . .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,page110:

        Horizontal spacing is further divided into multiples and fractions of the em. The multiples are calledquads. The fractions are calledspaces.

      • 2005, Phil Baines, Andrew Haslam,Type & Typography, 2nd edition,page91:

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

   3. (printingslang) Ajoke used to fill long days of setting type.
   4. (typography, phototypesetting and digital typesetting) Akeyboardcommand whichalignstext with the left or right margin, or centred between them. In combination, asquad left, quad right, orquad centre.
2. (informal) Aquadrangle(quadrangular courtyard).[from 1780s]
   • 1880,William Blades,The Enemies of Books, page38:

     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 theQuad 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^[2]:

     Every spring, thequad 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.”, inThe New York Times‎^[3],→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 thequad.

3. (colloquial,dated) Ahorse, from colloquial or humorousquadruped specifically forhorse.[from 1850s]
   • 1934, John Buchan,The Free Fishers,page258:

     Thequads 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 isquadruple (four times) the usual amount, number, etc.
   1. Aposter advertising acinematicfilm release, measuring forty by thirty inches, four times the area ofcrown paper.[c. 1910]
   2. (skating) Aquadruple, a jump with four revolutions in the air.
   3. A serving of four shots ofespresso;(attributive) containing four shots of espresso.
      • 2023 May 7, Josh, “How to Order a Quad Over Ice + Fun Alternatives”, inAngry Espresso‎^[4], archived fromthe original on2023-05-28:

        A grande icedquad latte with milk is $6.65 + tax, whereas aquad over ice with milk added at the self-serve station is only $3.65 + tax

   4. Askate with four wheels.
      • 2018, Elicia Hyder,Lights Out Lucy: Roller Derby 101:

        These are thequads I recommend for newbies.

      • 2014, Brigitte Legendre,A Skater's Business, page16:

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

5. Clipping ofquadruplet(“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, andQuads can be formed with both Honor and Suit Tiles.

   • 1999, Jennifer Kelley,Great Book of Domino Games,page70:

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

   • 2002,Experiments with Plants: teacher’s guide,page18:

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

   1. (electronics,telecommunications) A group of four insulated wires twisted together to form two circuits of two wires each.[from 1920s]
   2. (radio) Aquad antenna, a directional radio antenna consisting of multiple loop antennas.[from 1930s]
   3. (informal) Aquadruplet, one of four babies born during the same birth.
      • 1980, Linda Schreiber,Marathon Mom: The Wife and Mother Running Book,page18:

        My husband Jim was home[…] and so were my children: Samantha, 4, and the quadruplets, Zachary, Danielle, Amanda, and Elisabeth. Thequads were eighteen months old and in their usual fine form — singing, banging, pushing each other, and toddling into impossible places.

   4. (chess) A kind ofround-robintournament between four players, where each participant plays every other participant once.
   5. (Mormonism) The Bible,Book of Mormon,Doctrine and Covenants, andPearl of Great Price bound in a single volume.
   6. (pokerslang,attributive) Of or relating toquads(four of a kind).
      • 2001, Alfred Alvarez,Poker: Bets, Bluffs and Bad Beats,page90:

        Both players had four of a kind. A hadquad fours; B hadquad deuces.

6. (informal) Thequadriceps muscle.[from 1950s]
   • 2010, Adam Garett, “Fried Hams”, inReps!,17:23:

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

7. (informal)Quadruplex videotape.[from 1960s]
   • 1975,[US] House Subcommittee on Communications,Telecommunications Facilities and Demonstration Act of 1975,page11:

     The high band color quadruplex format is recommended for the following reasons:
     1.Quad is now the accepted industry standard world-wide with over 90% of all television broadcast operations using this format for video recording.

8. (informal) Aquadriplegic person.[from 1970s]
   • 2005, Nancy H. Blose,Behind the Curtain: Living as a Quadriplegic, Lulu Publishing, published2015,→ISBN, pages74–75:

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

9. A unit of energy equivalent to aquadrillionBTU(10¹⁵ BTU).[from 1970s]
10. Aquad bike.[from 1980s]
    • 2000, Sam Llewellyn,Wonder Dog,page20:

      Cad was a ferocious driver of aquad, much given to wheelies, jumps and stunts in general.

11. (informal,computer graphics) Aquadrilateral.[from 1980s]
    • 1989,ACM SIGGRAPH '89 Course Notes, New York: Association for Computing Machinery, page48:

      System Rasterization Primitives • Polygons • Triangles, Trapezoids,Quads

    • 2006, Koen Beets, Johan Claes, Frank Van Reeth, “Optimizing Mesh Construction for Quad/Triangle Schemes”, in Hans-Peter Seidel, Tomoyuki Nishita, Qunsheng Peng, editors,Advances in Computer Graphics, page711:

      schemes have appeared which generate good results when applied to meshes which contain both triangular and quadrilateral regions. These kinds of schemes turn out to be very useful for modelling animations, because there, in symmetric (e.g. cylindrical) areas,quads and vertices with valence 4 are preferred

    • 2010, Tony Mullen, Claudio Andaur,Blender Studio Projects: Digital Movie-Making, page91:

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

12. (informal) Aquadcopter.[from 2000s]
    • 2017 May 19, Ed Darack, “A Brief History of Quadrotors”, inAir & Space Magazine‎^[5]:

      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-platedquads, and the rest of us can buy tiny plastic ones.

13. (informal) Aquadrupelbeer.
    • 2012, Bruce Glassman,Brew Food: Great Beer-inspired Appetizers, Main Courses, and Desserts,page142:

      So what’s the beer for this great dish? You guessed it — Belgianquad. “I don’t usually pair the same beer with the one used in the recipe,” Bill explains, “but drinking a greatquad with this dish really elevates both the food and the beer in a special way.”

quad (notcomparable)

1. Quadruple, four times the usual size or quantity.[from 1880s]
   • 1896,Sunderland. Re Mawson, Phillips & Co., Ld., in Liquidation‎^[6]:

     Printing Plant Machinery, Type, Material, Fittings, Stock-in-Trade, Paper, &c.,includingQUAD-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),page23:

     Around the corner waits aQuad 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,page44:

     With Mali-400 MP4 GPU, 2GB of RAM and aquad-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”, inSport Fishing, volume30,page85:

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

2. (paper)Quadrille, marked with squares.

• quad paper

quad (third-person singular simple presentquads,present participlequadding,simple past and past participlequadded)

1. (typography,letterpresstypography,transitive,intransitive) Tofill spaces in a line of type with quads. Alsoquad 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, page232:

     Can you "quad" the cable?

   • 1961,Telecommunications, page690:

     The starquadding 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, page906:

     The conductors inquadded cables are tinned and may also be enameled.

4. (intransitive) To ride aquad bike.
   • 2006 April 27, Christopher Thrall, “There’s a mud-eating grin to be seen after every quadding adventure”, inVue Weekly, Edmonton,page31:

     visibility was perfect and mud was plentiful for ourquadding adventure.

• quad out

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

FromEnglishquad.

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

quad inan

1. quad bike

• “quad”, inEuskaltzaindiaren Hiztegia [Dictionary of the Basque Academy] (in Basque),Euskaltzaindia [Royal Academy of the Basque Language]

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

quad m (pluralquads)

1. Clipping ofquadricicle.

FromEnglishquad.

• Audio:

  (file)

quad m (pluralquads,diminutivequadje n)

1. quad,quad bike

• IPA^(key):[ˈkvɒd]

quad (pluralquadok)

1. quad bike

   Synonym:négykerekűmotorkerékpár

quad m (invariable)

1. quad bike

• quaid,queid
• quyed(dialectal)

Inherited fromMiddle Englishqued, fromOld Englishcwēad.

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

quad (comparativequader)

1. (dated)evil,wicked,bad[from 13th century]

Only the comparative is attested.

• “quad”, inThe Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh:Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present,→OCLC, reproduced fromWilliam 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

1. first/third-personsingularpastindicative ofquedan

Unadapted borrowing fromEnglishquad.

• IPA^(key):/ˈkwat/

• Audio:

  (file)

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

quad m inan

1. quad bike

   Synonyms:czterokołowiec,wszędołaz,kład

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

quad f (pluralquads)

1. all-terrain vehicle

• “quad”, inDiccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8,Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish:Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10