ad
noun
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ad
1 American
[ad]
/ æd /
ad
2
American
[ad]
/ æd /
noun
Tennis.
-
ad in, the advantage being scored by the server.
-
ad out, the advantage being scored by the receiver.
ad
3
American
[ad]
/ æd /
preposition
ad-
4
American
-ad
5
American
-
a suffix occurring in loanwords from Greek denoting a group or unit comprising a certain number, sometimes of years: dyad; triad .
-
a suffix meaning “derived from,” “related to,” “concerned with,” “associated with” (oread ), introduced in loanwords from Greek (Olympiad; oread ), used sporadically in imitation of Greek models, as Dunciad , after Iliad .
-ad
6
American
-ad
7
American
ad.
8
American
abbreviation
-
adverb.
-
advertisement.
a.d.
9
American
Or
A.D.
abbreviation
a.d.
10
American
abbreviation
a.d.
11
American
abbreviation
-
after date.
-
autograph document.
A.D.
12
American
AD
1
British
abbreviation
-
anno Domini Compare BC
70 ad
-
military active duty
-
military air defence
-
Dame of the Order of Australia
-ad
2
British
suffix
-
a group or unit (having so many parts or members)
triad
-
an epic poem concerning (the subject indicated by the stem)
Dunciad
ad-
3
British
prefix
-
to; towards
adsorb
adverb
-
near; next to
adrenal
-ad
4
British
suffix
ad
5
British
/ æd /
noun
ad
6
British
/ æd /
noun
ad
7
British
abbreviation
Usage
Because anno Domini means “in the year of the Lord,” its abbreviation a.d. was originally placed before rather than after a date: The Roman conquest of Britain began in a.d. 43 (or began a.d. 43). In edited writing, it is still usually placed before the date. But, by analogy with the position of b.c. “before Christ,” which always appears after a date ( Caesar was assassinated in 44 b.c. ), a.d. is also frequently found after the date in all types of writing, including historical works: The Roman emperor Claudius I lived from 10 b.c. to 54 a.d. Despite its literal meaning, a.d. is also used to designate centuries, being placed after the specified century: the second century a.d.
In strict usage, ad is only employed with specific years: he died in 1621 ad , but he died in the 17th century (and not the 17th century ad ). Formerly the practice was to write ad preceding the date ( ad 1621 ), and it is also strictly correct to omit in when ad is used, since this is already contained in the meaning of the Latin anno Domini (in the year of Our Lord), but this is no longer general practice. bc is used with both specific dates and indications of the period: Heraclitus was born about 540 bc ; the battle took place in the 4th century bc
Etymology
Origin of ad1
First recorded in 1795–1800; by shortening
Origin of ad2
First recorded in 1915–20; by shortening
Origin of ad3
From Latin
Origin of ad-4
< Latin ad, ad- (preposition and prefix) to, toward, at, about; cognate with at 1
Origin of -ad5
Greek -ad- (stem of -as ), specialization of feminine adjective-forming suffix, often used substantively
Origin of -ad7
From the Latin word ad toward, anomalously suffixed to the noun; introduced as a suffix by Scottish anatomist John Barclay (1758–1826) in 1803
Origin of a.d.9
From Latin annō Dominī
Origin of a.d.10
From Latin ante diem
Explanation
An ad is a commercial or a print promotion for some product or service. In other words, an ad is an advertisement. When a company uses print or broadcasting — newspapers, magazines, the Internet, or television, for example — to attempt to sell more of something, it's an ad. Though the word ad is an informal shortened form of advertisement, it's become more commonly used than the original. Those in the business of advertising have objected to this slang form ever since it was first used, around 1840.
Vocabulary lists containing ad
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He sounded as chipper as a Chamber of Commerce ad.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
OpenAI has taken an “everything, everywhere, all at once” approach to its ad rollout, said NewStreet Research analyst Dan Salmon, calling the pace impressive and unprecedented.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
In a milestone for the fledgling operation, the company said last month it was on pace to hit $1 billion in annualized ad revenue.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
Seven months in, the ad business is now in more than 50 countries.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
He had the cleanest fingernails of any man I’d ever seen—it was the male hand in the ad reaching to put the diamond on the Pond’s-caressed female hand.
From "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson
There’s also the question of how DuckDuckGo’s browser compares to Brave, a Chromium fork that’s already available on Mac, Windows, and Linux that offers some of the same ad- and tracker-blocking capabilities.
From The Verge ● Apr. 12, 2022
What’s more, the Cardinals are surging and better with ad- dition of Zach Ertz.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2021
The new party was founded to “boldly ad- dress their issues, the war in Vietnam, the militarization of society, the problems of the poor, and the destruction of the environment,” the party’s website proclaims.
From Salon ● Dec. 31, 2015
We ’d be fixing the economy, ad- dressing national security issues, and improving education.
From MSNBC ● Sep. 9, 2014
NOTE.—The forms ac-, af-, etc., are euphonic variations of ad-, and follow generally the rule that the final consonant of the prefix assimilates to the initial letter of the root.
From New Word-Analysis by William Swinton
To make sick = naŭz‑i; -ad denotes continuation. 8Tired of.
From International Language Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar by Walter John Clark
Gay = gaj‑a; gloomy = malgaja; suf. -ad denotes continuance.
From International Language Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar by Walter John Clark
To roll = rul‑i; suf. -ad denotes continuance. 9Weariness.
From International Language Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar by Walter John Clark
“Not a single ad. It looks like the old Pinterest. You’re welcome,” she says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
The banner, which uses the neo-fascist group‘s signature colors, also references the hot-button American Eagle ad. “She has the best blue genes,” the banner says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 8, 2025
"We spoke with Ulster University and they provided assurance that they would remove the ad. As such, as we consider the matter closed," it added.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2023
“We hear you today. We must hear you tomorrow. There are less than 8 million Jewish people in this country. Fewer than are watching this ad. They need you to add your voice.”
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 30, 2022
“Problem is, nobody worth a toot come for the ad. People come in here, they say they know silk, but they don’t know nothing. Just hoping to get hired and fired. Get a day’s pay.”
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
The first exhibit of ancient glass in the New York museum’s history, “Ennion: Master of Roman Glass” features pieces dating from the early 1st century a.d. by Ennion, the era’'s preeminent maker of mold-blown glass.
From Architectural Digest ● Dec. 11, 2014
One Ennion jug, now fragmentary, survived a fire during the Roman capture of Jerusalem in a.d.
From Architectural Digest ● Dec. 11, 2014
It is true that the Maya were numerous; archaeologists agree that more people lived in the heartland in 800 a.d. than today.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
It was built in stages in the second and third centuries a.d. atop a deep, 300-foot cave created by a lava tube that may have represented the place where human- kind emerged onto the earth.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
At some point, Chak Tok Ich’aak must have realized that January 14, 378 a.d., would be his last day on earth.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Plinian eruptions represent the most explosive class of volcanic eruptions and are named after Pliny the Elder, who described the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 14, 2026
“In the 14th century A.D., a Moroccan explorer named Ibn Battuta documented that a buttery variation of khichuri was eaten daily in South Asia,” wrote Rachael Grow for Mashed.
From Salon ● Jun. 7, 2026
Ariel Yagen, who plays the adult Jesus, is a thickly bearded Israeli who looks like he’d fit right into an Aramaic-speaking village like Nazareth, circa A.D.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 26, 2026
To say that our picture of the Mayan civilization—an interlocking network of kingdoms occupying the Yucatán Peninsula and swaths of present-day Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador from roughly 1000 B.C. to A.D.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 2026
The han’gul alphabet devised by Korea’s King Sejong in A.D.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
The Nazca Lines are a group of geoglyphs etched into the desert sands that date back to between 500 BC and 500 AD.
From Barron's ● Aug. 2, 2026
Supermarket operators Kroger and Stop & Shop owner Ahold Delhaize AD 2.51%increase; up pointing triangle in recent months have touted price drops in their advertising.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026
“I was moving away from Venus for the first time in my life, so I wanted it to be really meaningful,” Williams explained to AD while discussing the project.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 8, 2026
Eryn From Brookeborough in County Fermanagh, previously told BBC News NI she doesn't visit the cinema often, as the nearby IMC in Enniskillen does not offer AD headsets.
From BBC ● Jun. 5, 2026
One evening in 610 AD, Mohammed, a thirty-year-old native of Mecca, fell into a trance on Mount Hira.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
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.
