GADDING

GAD

gallivant, gad, jazz around

(verb) wander aimlessly in search of pleasure

Source: WordNet® 3.1

Verb

gadding

present participle of gad

Noun

gadding (plural gaddings)

The act of one who gads, or moves about frivolously.

Source: Wiktionary

Gad"ding, a. & n.

Definition: Going about much, needlessly or without purpose. Envy is a gadding passion, and walketh the streets. Bacon. The good nuns would check her gadding tongue. Tennyson. Gadding car, in quarrying, a car which carries a drilling machine so arranged as to drill a line of holes.

GAD

Gad, n. Etym: [OE. gad, Icel. gaddr goad, sting; akin to Sw. gadd sting, Goth. gazds, G. gerte switch. See Yard a measure.]

1. The point of a spear, or an arrowhead.

2. A pointed or wedge-shaped instrument of metal, as a steel wedge used in mining, etc. I will go get a leaf of brass, And with a gad of steel will write these words. Shak.

3. A sharp-pointed rod; a goad.

4. A spike on a gauntlet; a gadling. Fairholt.

5. A wedge-shaped billet of iron or steel. [Obs.] Flemish steel . . . some in bars and some in gads. Moxon.

6. A rod or stick, as a fishing rod, a measuring rod, or a rod used to drive cattle with. [Prov. Eng. Local, U.S.] Halliwell. Bartlett. Upon the gad, upon the spur of the moment; hastily. [Obs.] "All this done upon the gad!" Shak.

Gad, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Gadded; p. pr. & vb. n. Gadding.] Etym: [Prob. fr. gad, n., and orig. meaning to drive about.]

Definition: To walk about; to rove or go about, without purpose; hence, to run wild; to be uncontrolled. "The gadding vine." Milton. Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way Jer. ii. 36.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition