wad

¹ American  

[wod] / wɒd /

noun

1. a small mass, lump, or ball of anything: a wad of tobacco.

   a wad of paper;

   a wad of tobacco.

2. a small mass of cotton, wool, or other fibrous or soft material, used for stuffing, padding, packing, etc.

3. a roll of something, especially of bank notes.

4. Informal. a comparatively large stock or quantity of something, especially money.

   He's got a healthy wad salted away.

5. a plug of cloth, tow, paper, or the like, used to hold the powder or shot, or both, in place in a gun or cartridge.

6. British Dialect. a bundle, especially a small one, of hay, straw, etc.

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verb (used with object)

• wads,
  present (3rd person singular)
• wadded,
  past participle,  past
• wadding
  present participle

1. to form (material) into a wad.

2. to roll tightly (often followed byup ).

   He wadded up his cap and stuck it into his pocket.

3. to hold in place by a wad.

   They rammed and wadded the shot into their muskets.

4. to put a wad into; stuff with a wad.

5. to fill out with or as if with wadding; stuff; pad.

   to wad a quilt;

   to wad a speech with useless information.

verb (used without object)

• wads,
  present (3rd person singular)
• wadded,
  past participle,  past
• wadding
  present participle

1. to become formed into a wad.

   The damp tissues had wadded in his pocket.

idioms

1. shoot one's wad,

   1. to spend all one's money.

      He shot his wad on a new car.

   2. to expend all one's energies or resources at one time.

      She shot her wad writing her first novel and her second wasn't as good.

   3. Slang: Vulgar. (of a man) to have an orgasm.

wad ² American  

[wod] / wɒd /

noun

1. a soft, earthy, black to dark-brown mass of manganese oxide minerals.

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wad ¹ British  

/ wɒd /

noun

1. a small mass or ball of fibrous or soft material, such as cotton wool, used esp for packing or stuffing

2. 1. a plug of paper, cloth, leather, etc, pressed against a charge to hold it in place in a muzzle-loading cannon

   2. a disc of paper, felt, pasteboard, etc, used to hold in place the powder and shot in a shotgun cartridge

3. a roll or bundle of something, esp of banknotes

4. slang a large quantity, esp of money

5. dialect a bundle of hay or straw

6. slang military a bun

   char and a wad

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verb

1. to form (something) into a wad

2. (tr) to roll into a wad or bundle

3. (tr)

   1. to hold (a charge) in place with a wad

   2. to insert a wad into (a gun)

4. (tr) to pack or stuff with wadding; pad

wad ² British  

/ wɒd /

noun

1. a soft dark earthy amorphous material consisting of decomposed manganese minerals: occurs in damp marshy areas

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• wadder
  noun
• unwadded
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• wadding
  present
• wadded
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• wad
  simple
• wads
  simple
• have wadded
  perfect
• has wadded
  perfect
• am wadding
  progressive
• are wadding
  progressive
• is wadding
  progressive
• have been wadding
  perfect progressive
• has been wadding
  perfect progressive

Past

• wadded
  simple
• had wadded
  perfect
• was wadding
  progressive
• were wadding
  progressive
• had been wadding
  perfect progressive

Future

• will wad
  simple
• will have wadded
  perfect
• will be wadding
  progressive
• will have been wadding
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of wad¹

First recorded in 1400–50; Middle English wadde “small bundle of straw used as a pad beneath a horse’s girth to prevent chafing,” from Medieval Latin wadda; further origin uncertain

Origin of wad²

First recorded in 1605–15; origin uncertain

Explanation

A wad is a bundle or lump of something, like the wads of chewing gum you'll find if you look under your chair at school. Yuck! You can also call a wad a bundle, clump, or ball — most office trash cans contain wads of paper, and making a pillow involves stuffing it with wads of cotton or polyester material. Wad is also a verb, like when you wad up a damp hand towel and throw it in the laundry hamper. Etymologists guess that the Old Norse word vað, or "cloth," is the root of wad.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

wad wads wadded wadding

Take, for instance, the dapper child who grimaces squarely at the camera with a wad of cash in his hands.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026

She said: "So they gave me a wad of leaflets, and then goodbye, shook hands and went out through the door. Well, I was dumbfounded actually."

From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2025

These commitments are important, as they give Kennedy something to wad up and christen his wastebasket with when he steps into his new office.

From Slate ● Feb. 8, 2025

“Popular,” which she sings before she shortens her name from Galinda to Glinda, is a delight that Grande savors like a big, delicious wad of pink bubblegum.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 10, 2024

Before I could protest, the entire wad dissolved.

From "Glitch" by Laura Martin

Her history of Kleenex tissues is a tour de force: We learn that the Kimberly-Clark Corp., which owns Kleenex, played on the fear that reusable handkerchiefs were essentially wads of tuberculosis germs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026

He posed for photos holding Rolex watches and expensive cigars, and pretending to eat wads of banknotes.

From BBC ● May 7, 2025

But at the time, the test involved a series of plastic balls, paper wads, and sponges—nothing like real waste.

From Slate ● Feb. 25, 2025

China has been throwing wads of cash at clean energy, and coal’s demise seems inevitable there, my Bloomberg Opinion colleague David Fickling has written.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 27, 2023

For these dances the boys send corsages, which I press afterward and keep in my bureau drawer: squashed carnations and brown-edged rosebuds, wads of dead vegetation, like a collection of floral shrunken heads.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood

The crowd was further energized by the presence of longtime Count Basie drummer Jo Jones—sitting near the stage, keeping time with a wadded up Christian Science Monitor newspaper—and even more so by Elaine Anderson.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026

During a sleepover that October, a group of Holy Child students took wadded up newspaper pages and stuck them in the chain-link fence on Linden Lane, spelling out “SURRENDER DOROTHY.”

From Washington Post ● Jan. 7, 2023

All that shiny wrapping paper and ribbon, for instance, wadded into non-recyclable mounds.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2022

The painting is a large-scale, squarish, predominantly black canvas, with two pairs of actual woolen pants wadded up on the surface.

From New York Times ● Oct. 6, 2022

“I got that bell wadded tighter than a tick. Tansy wants us in school, she’ll have to come out and pick us off one by one.”

From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck

The court also heard from Lucy Ness, who was given an urn containing "wadding and pieces of bone" instead of her baby's ashes.

From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026

As he said in 1857, what was the point of celebrating the Fourth if the Declaration was now treated as “mere rubbish—old wadding left to rot on the battlefield”?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 1, 2026

On some trips, the boys would convince Dad to play football, wadding up a sock to serve as their pigskin.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2023

Blanks can still be dangerous because they involve gunpowder and paper wadding or wax, which provide a flame and spark, which look good on camera.

From New York Times ● Oct. 22, 2021

He might be a little cold this day without the wadding of the winter garments, but he suddenly could not bear to put them on against his clean flesh.

From "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck

Related Words

• bundle
• chunk
• clump
• lump
• packet