toad
Americannoun
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toads
plural
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any of various tailless amphibians that are close relatives of the frogs in the order Anura and that typically have dry, warty skin and are terrestrial or semiterrestrial in habit.
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Also called true toad. a toad of the widespread and chiefly terrestrial family Bufonidae, having relatively short hind legs used in hopping and often having at the shoulders swellings containing glands that, along with the skin, secrete an irritating fluid in defense.
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any of various toadlike animals, as certain lizards.
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a person or thing as an object of disgust or aversion.
noun
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any anuran amphibian of the class Bufonidae, such as Bufo bufo ( common toad ) of Europe. They are similar to frogs but are more terrestrial, having a drier warty skin
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any of various similar amphibians of different families
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a loathsome person
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of toad
before 1000; Middle English tode, Old English tāde, tādi ( g ) e
Explanation
A toad is an amphibian with dry, bumpy skin and no tail. A common myth says that toads will give you warts, but it's not true. Toads are actually a type of frog. They tend to be short and wide, and to have larger eyeballs than typical frogs. Toads also don't jump as high as other frogs, and they don't need to live near water. The typically bumpy skin of toads is what led them to be associated with warts, and this perceived homeliness has made toad a derogatory term: "You're nothing but a horrible old toad!"
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:
Those comparisons helped demonstrate that the La Brea fossils belonged to a distinct species of spadefoot toad rather than to an unusual individual of a known species.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 16, 2026
In Nevada, opponents launched a lawsuit over a gold mine they say will threaten a rare toad and fish.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
Unearthing the spadefoot toad wasn’t the result of a targeted search — it happened by accident, much like many of history’s greatest finds.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
Meanwhile the team's plan to aid the natterjack toad is to try and figure out how to best reverse the degradation of Cumbria's sand dunes.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
She could try her very hardest and still end up sharing a tank with her toad.
From "Witchlings" by Claribel A. Ortega
Eastern Japanese toads are typically found in forests, grasslands and other terrestrial habitats across eastern Japan, but they have also proved remarkably adaptable to urban environments.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
The miracle behind Cruz’s discovery is that amphibians such as frogs, toads and salamanders rarely make it into the fossil records because of their fragile skeletons.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
In hard-hit areas like Le Porge, experts say insects will have perished en masse and larger creatures from toads to lizards will not have been spared either.
From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026
To better understand why some populations recover while others continue to collapse, researchers studied common midwife toads living around four lakes in the Pyrenees of France and Spain that had all experienced severe Bd outbreaks.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 15, 2026
No one liked humans, not even the half-brained toads who lived in the muddy ditch along the road.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
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.
