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:
The Buckeye Bulletin’s Facebook and Instagram accounts have spent just over $10,000 boosting posts this year, according to Meta’s ad library.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2026
That leaves Meta relying on its ad business to pay for its data-center build-out.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2026
Hamilton’s campaign built an ad around Meischa Zimmerman, who says she was arrested while eight months pregnant after missing a $50 payment, and found herself pleading not to be handcuffed in front of her two-year-old.
From Salon ● Oct. 25, 2026
"I mean, think about this latest ad he ran."
From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2026
The news had cut to commercial, and through the line Mrs. Richardson could hear the tinny jingle of the Cedar Point ad on the McCulloughs’ set, a fraction of a second behind her own.
From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng
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
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
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
“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
“It’s from an old Budweiser ad. Yeah. It reminds me of that other famous Churchill quote, ‘Wazzzuuuuuuup?’”
From New York Times ● Jan. 23, 2024
"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
“It’s a lot like that ad. The one we found on the ground. You remember, Ruth?”
From "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro
One Ennion jug, now fragmentary, survived a fire during the Roman capture of Jerusalem in a.d.
From Architectural Digest ● Dec. 11, 2014
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
He has written that by 1000 a.d. the city had a population of as much as 115,000, with another quarter million in the surrounding countryside—numbers that Paris would not reach for another five centuries.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Judging by carbon dating and the sequence of ceramics, they believe the site was inhabited in two waves, from about 360 b.c., when terra preta formation began, to as late as 1440 a.d.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Based in southern Ohio, the Hopewell interaction sphere lasted until about 400 a.d. and extended across two-thirds of what is now the United States.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
In 1960, Science, one of the world’s leading science journals, published an article with an unambiguous title: Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 17, 2026
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
“Agrippa” is the fifth foray into the ancient world by Mr. Harris, whose works include a trilogy about Cicero and a thriller set in Pompeii on the eve of its destruction in A.D.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
There was enough of a resurgence in the 1970s to merit a new term, the “directorial mode,” coined by critic A.D.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026
There, upon a low black hill, stood the House, its cornerstone bearing the inscription 2005 A.D.
From "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury
Among the conditions examined, the neurodegenerative disorders AD and MCI showed the strongest associations with higher PAD values, suggesting the greatest degree of accelerated brain aging.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 29, 2026
It also contained various other relics – including metal weapons – belonging to the pre-Incan Chimu civilisation, a culture that flourished on the northern coast of Peru between 900 and 1470 AD.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
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
Speaking to AD, Williams credited her sister and longtime doubles teammate for helping her to create the perfect home for her family.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 8, 2026
You are probably familiar with the abbreviations BC and AD.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
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