English

Proper noun

Chad

1. A male given name. Also a modern nickname for Charles, Chadwick and similar-sounding names
2. (Britain) The British version of the "Kilroy was here" graffiti.

Quotations

• 1993 Jonathan Kellerman, Devil's Waltz, Random House 1998, ISBN 0345460715, page 26:

  "What else? Anyway, here's the genealogy: Charles Junior's only son is Charles the Third - like royalty. He goes by Chip - Cassie's daddy. The mom is Cindy. The dead son was Chad - Charles the Fourth."

  "All Cs," I said. "Sounds like they like order."

• 1995 Hanif Kureishi, The Black Album, Faber and Faber, ISBN 0571150861, pages 88, 90

  'He used to be called Trevor Buss.'

  'Chad? I don't believe you.' - - -

  'He changed his name into Muhammad Shahabuddin Ali-Shah.'

  'No!'

  'He'd insist on the whole name. He played football and his mates got fed up saying, "Pass the ball, Muhammad Shahabuddin Ali-Shah" - - - No one passed to him. So he became Chad.'

Etymology 2

Believed to be from Kanuri tsade ("lake", after Lake Chad)

Proper noun

Chad

1. A country in Central Africa. Official name: Republic of Chad.
2. A lake in Central Africa.

Hypernyms

• Subsahara

Translations

See also

• Countries of the world

Asturian

Proper noun

Chad m

1. Chad

Spanish

Proper noun

Chad ?

1. Chad

Related terms

• chadiano, chadiana

English

Mounds of chads generated from punch cards

Noun

chad ‎(countable and uncountable, plural chad or chads)^[3]

1. (uncountable) Small pieces of paper punched out from the edges of continuous stationery, or from ballot papers, paper tape, punched cards, etc.
   • 2011 June 1, David P. Mikkelson, “Chad: Does the word ‘chad’ come from the Chadless keypunch, invented by a Mr. Chadless?”, in Snopes.com, retrieved 7 September 2016:

     The keypunch wasn't named after a Mr. Chadless; it was so named because, as expected, it punched tape while producing little or no chad.

2. (countable) One of these pieces of paper.
   • 1939 May 20, Ross A. Lake, Printing Perforating Telegraph Apparatus, US Patent 2255794:

     Prior devices of the type according to the present invention have been arranged to cut out the perforations completely at a single movement, thereby producing chads or waste material which often present difficult problems of disposal.

   • 1959, J[ohn] W[illiam] Freebody, Telegraphy, London: Isaac Pitman & Sons, OCLC 892562842:

     The small hinged discs of paper, called ‘chad’, remain attached to the body of the tape.

   • 2000 December 12, Supreme Court of the United States, per curiam, “Bush v. Gore”, in United States Reports, volume 531, page 98 at 105:

     Much of the controversy seems to revolve around ballot cards designed to be perforated by a stylus but which, either through error or deliberate omission, have not been perforated with sufficient precision for a machine to count them. In some cases a piece of the card—a chad—is hanging, say by two corners. In other cases there is no separation at all, just an indentation.

Translations

Derived terms

See also

• Appendix:American Dialect Society words of the year

References

1. ↑ David P. Mikkelson (1 June 2011), “Chad: Does the word ‘chad’ come from the Chadless keypunch, invented by a Mr. Chadless?”, in Snopes.com, retrieved 7 September 2016.
2. ↑ William Safire (2004) The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time: Wit and Wisdom from the Popular “On Language” Column in The New York Times Magazine, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-0-7432-4244-8, page 43.
3. ↑ “chad” in Macmillan Dictionary, American edition; “chad” in Macmillan Dictionary, British edition.

Middle English

Etymology

See ch-.

Verb

chad

1. I had

Palauan

Noun

chad

1. person

Welsh

Noun

chad

1. Aspirate mutation of cad.