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wad

/wɑd/
/wɒd/
IPA guide

Other forms: waded; wadded; wads

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.

Definitions of wad
  1. noun
    a small mass of soft material
    “he used a wad of cotton to wipe the counter”
    see moresee less
    type of:
    material, stuff
    the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object
  2. noun
    (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent
    “a wad of money”
    see moresee less
    types:
    barrage, deluge, flood, flurry, inundation, torrent
    an overwhelming number or amount
    haymow
    a mass of hay piled up in a barn for preservation
    type of:
    large indefinite amount, large indefinite quantity
    an indefinite quantity that is above the average in size or magnitude
  3. noun
    a wad of something chewable as tobacco
    synonyms: chaw, chew, cud, plug, quid
    see moresee less
    type of:
    bit, bite, morsel
    a small amount of solid food; a mouthful
  4. verb
    crowd or pack to capacity
    synonyms: chock up, cram, jam, jampack, ram
    cram
    put something somewhere so that the space is completely filled
    see moresee less
    type of:
    stuff
    cram into a cavity
  5. verb
    compress into a wad
    wad paper into the box”
    synonyms: bundle, compact, pack
    compact, pack
    have the property of being packable or of compacting easily
    see moresee less
    types:
    puddle
    work a wet mixture, such as concrete or mud
    type of:
    arrange, set up
    put into a proper or systematic order
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