an intense but short-lived fashion; craze
a personal idiosyncrasy or whim
1825–35; noun use of dial. fad to look after things, busy oneself with trifles, back formation from obsolete faddle to play with, fondle. See fiddle
If it’s all the rage, everybody’s into it, your parents don’t get it, and teenage girls across the globe are trying to outdo each other with it, it’s officially a fad. From hairstyles to hula hoops to saying “that’s hot,” fads are known to rise to crazed levels of popularity seemingly overnight. But they fade out just as fast, leaving late adopters with outdated sayings and some seriously uncool shoes. Much like a fad itself, no one has any real idea where this word came from. But it’s still in fashion some 144 years later.
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Fad budgeting methods with cute names come and go: zero-based, 50/30/20, envelope, and so forth.
From MarketWatch • May 14, 2026
Fad, seeing the perfect way to fund N.W.A through Fad’s pop-friendly and commercially viable package.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 11, 2024
Bluebird's rebirth on Loch Fad in August 2018 saw tensions ease as Miss Campbell backed its restorer's call for it to be maintained as a working craft.
From BBC • Mar. 7, 2024
Fad says Wilbur and Dustin were matched in a way she compared to dating apps for humans.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 6, 2024
These few errands left me chilled to the bone, so cold that not even the window displays at the clothing store called The Fad could draw me in.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
