quad

See also: Quad and quad-

English

Etymology

Shortened, via clipping or abbreviation, from various English terms. Ultimately related to Latin quattuor (“4”); compare quadri-, quadruple.

The typography senses are from the abbreviation quad. for obsolete quadrat; the keyboard command comes from the verb sense.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /kwɑd/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kwɒd/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒd

Noun

quad (plural quads)

1. (typography, obsolete) Abbreviation of quadrat. [18th to 19th century]
   2. (letterpress typography) A blank metal block used to fill short lines of type. [from 1780s]

      Synonyms: em space, (obsolete) quadrat

      • 1853 April 16, Charles Dickens, Household Words‎^[1], number 160, page 148:

        “Quadrats, sir. We call 'em quads.” . . . Quads are the spaces left between the paragraphs that come white on the paper. If you look here, at this page that is set-up, you will see that they are deeper than the spaces left between the words and letters—regular little trenches.

      • 1979, Marshall Lee, Bookmaking, page 110:

        Horizontal spacing is further divided into multiples and fractions of the em. The multiples are called quads. The fractions are called spaces.

      • 2005, Phil Baines, Andrew Haslam, Type & Typography, 2nd edition, page 91:

        Other larger spaces – known as quads – were used to space out lines.

   3. (printing slang) A joke used to fill long days of setting type.
   4. (typography, phototypesetting and digital typesetting) A keyboard command which aligns text with the left or right margin, or centred between them. In combination, as quad left, quad right, or quad centre.
2. (informal) A quadrangle (quadrangular courtyard). [from 1780s]
   • 1880, William Blades, The Enemies of Books, page 38:

     Gilt-backed books on gilded shelf or table caught the eye, and as you turned your glance from the luxurious interiors to the well-shorn lawn in the Quad with its classic fountain also gilded by sunbeams, the mental vision saw plainly written over the whole "The Union of Luxury and Learning."

   • 2014, Walker Orenstein, for Norwest Asian Weekly, Cherry trees from Japan to grace UW campus‎^[2]:

     Every spring, the quad on the University of Washington (UW) campus transforms from a peaceful green space to a bustling habitat for hundreds of shuttering cameras, families, and onlookers.

   • 2021 November 21, Nicole Sperling, “How Do You Make Teen Comedies Today? Buy a High School.”, in The New York Times‎^[3], →ISSN:

     The teenage couple is lounging on the lawn outside a high school, taking advantage of a free period between classes in that age-old way: making out on the quad.

3. (colloquial, dated) A horse, from colloquial or humorous quadruped specifically for horse. [from 1850s]
   • 1934, John Buchan, The Free Fishers, page 258:

     The quads is all right, barrin’ that the bay is blind o’ the left eye, and the chestnut a bit weak in the off fore.

4. Something that is quadruple (four times) the usual amount, number, etc.
   1. A poster advertising a cinematic film release, measuring forty by thirty inches, four times the area of crown paper. [c. 1910]
   2. (skating) A quadruple, a jump with four revolutions in the air.
   3. A serving of four shots of espresso; (attributive) containing four shots of espresso.
      • 2023 May 7, Josh, “How to Order a Quad Over Ice + Fun Alternatives”, in Angry Espresso‎^[4], archived from the original on 2023-05-28:

        A grande iced quad latte with milk is $6.65 + tax, whereas a quad over ice with milk added at the self-serve station is only $3.65 + tax

   4. A skate with four wheels.
      • 2018, Elicia Hyder, Lights Out Lucy: Roller Derby 101:

        These are the quads I recommend for newbies.

      • 2014, Brigitte Legendre, A Skater's Business, page 16:

        When you can skate, inline, ice, quads are all equally enjoyable as long as they are of good enough quality.

5. Clipping of quadruplet (“a set of four; one of a set of four”). [from 1890s]
   • 1991, Alain Gelbman, Mah Jong: One Step at a Time, page 7:

     The Pair, Triples, and Quads can be formed with both Honor and Suit Tiles.

   • 1999, Jennifer Kelley, Great Book of Domino Games, page 70:

     Object of the game: To use up all the tiles by playing them in quads. A quad is four consecutive numbers running in ascending or descending order, and played in a straight line.

   • 2002, Experiments with Plants: teacher’s guide, page 18:

     Each person on the team could be exclusively responsible for taking care of and keeping records for one set of four plants (a quad).

   1. (electronics, telecommunications) A group of four insulated wires twisted together to form two circuits of two wires each. [from 1920s]
   2. (radio) A quad antenna, a directional radio antenna consisting of multiple loop antennas. [from 1930s]
   3. (informal) A quadruplet, one of four babies born during the same birth.
      • 1980, Linda Schreiber, Marathon Mom: The Wife and Mother Running Book, page 18:

        My husband Jim was home […] and so were my children: Samantha, 4, and the quadruplets, Zachary, Danielle, Amanda, and Elisabeth. The quads were eighteen months old and in their usual fine form — singing, banging, pushing each other, and toddling into impossible places.

   4. (chess) A kind of round-robin tournament between four players, where each participant plays every other participant once.
   5. (Mormonism) The Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price bound in a single volume.
   6. (poker slang, attributive) Of or relating to quads (four of a kind).
      • 2001, Alfred Alvarez, Poker: Bets, Bluffs and Bad Beats, page 90:

        Both players had four of a kind. A had quad fours; B had quad deuces.

6. (informal) The quadriceps muscle. [from 1950s]
   • 2010, Adam Garett, “Fried Hams”, in Reps!, 17:23:

     Aesthetics aside, if you train your quads while neglecting your hamstrings, you're setting yourself up for an eventual injury.

7. (informal) Quadruplex videotape. [from 1960s]
   • 1975, [US] House Subcommittee on Communications, Telecommunications Facilities and Demonstration Act of 1975, page 11:

     The high band color quadruplex format is recommended for the following reasons:
     1. Quad is now the accepted industry standard world-wide with over 90% of all television broadcast operations using this format for video recording.

8. (informal) A quadriplegic person. [from 1970s]
   • 2005, Nancy H. Blose, Behind the Curtain: Living as a Quadriplegic, Lulu Publishing, published 2015, →ISBN, pages 74–75:

     The worse was the realization that this was my new reality. This too was Bill's debut as a husband of a quad and his first social gathering since June 22.

9. A unit of energy equivalent to a quadrillion BTU (10¹⁵ BTU). [from 1970s]
10. A quad bike. [from 1980s]
    • 2000, Sam Llewellyn, Wonder Dog, page 20:

      Cad was a ferocious driver of a quad, much given to wheelies, jumps and stunts in general.

11. (informal, computer graphics) A quadrilateral. [from 1980s]
    • 1989, ACM SIGGRAPH '89 Course Notes, New York: Association for Computing Machinery, page 48:

      System Rasterization Primitives • Polygons • Triangles, Trapezoids, Quads

    • 2006, Koen Beets, Johan Claes, Frank Van Reeth, “Optimizing Mesh Construction for Quad/Triangle Schemes”, in Hans-Peter Seidel, Tomoyuki Nishita, Qunsheng Peng, editors, Advances in Computer Graphics, page 711:

      schemes have appeared which generate good results when applied to meshes which contain both triangular and quadrilateral regions. These kinds of schemes turn out to be very useful for modelling animations, because there, in symmetric (e.g. cylindrical) areas, quads and vertices with valence 4 are preferred

    • 2010, Tony Mullen, Claudio Andaur, Blender Studio Projects: Digital Movie-Making, page 91:

      Tris and quads have different areas of functionality. In real-time graphics, tris are the norm because they provide the most basic geometric representations of planes.

12. (informal) A quadcopter. [from 2000s]
    • 2017 May 19, Ed Darack, “A Brief History of Quadrotors”, in Air & Space Magazine‎^[5]:

      Today you can buy quadrotor drones—also known as quadcopters—of just about any kind, for just about any price. The extremely wealthy can buy gold-plated quads, and the rest of us can buy tiny plastic ones.

13. (informal) A quadrupel beer.
    • 2012, Bruce Glassman, Brew Food: Great Beer-inspired Appetizers, Main Courses, and Desserts, page 142:

      So what’s the beer for this great dish? You guessed it — Belgian quad. “I don’t usually pair the same beer with the one used in the recipe,” Bill explains, “but drinking a great quad with this dish really elevates both the food and the beer in a special way.”

Derived terms

typography

• em quad
• en quad
• mutton quad
• nut quad

 

quadruplet

• dotted quad
• quad bike
• quadcore
• quad meet
• quad play
• quad skate

 

other senses

• Quad Committee
• quad hockey
• quad rugby
• quad ruled
• quad suit

 

Translations

quadrangle — see quadrangle

quadruplet — see quadruplet

quadrilateral — see quadrilateral

quad bike — see quad bike

Adjective

quad (not comparable)

1. Quadruple, four times the usual size or quantity. [from 1880s]
   • 1896, Sunderland. Re Mawson, Phillips & Co., Ld., in Liquidation‎^[6]:

     Printing Plant Machinery, Type, Material, Fittings, Stock-in-Trade, Paper, &c., including QUAD-CROWN CYLINDER MACHINE, With Flyers, Riders, &c., by Miller & Richard.

   • 1998, Kip Ward, Mike van Mantgem, Axel Floyd, Quake for Nintendo 64 (Prima’s Unauthorized Game Secrets), page 23:

     Around the corner waits a Quad Damage rune, which you can activate before returning to the Teleporter and heading for the Gold Key.

   • 2014, Brian Johnson, 21 Best Tablets for You This Holiday Season of 2014, page 44:

     With Mali-400 MP4 GPU, 2GB of RAM and a quad-core Cortex-A9 processor, this tablet is more than capable to handle even the latest graphics intense games

   • 2015 May, Chris Woodward, “Yamaha 190 FSH”, in Sport Fishing, volume 30, page 85:

     SeaStar Solutions, which makes systems for twin- and triple-outboard powered boats, now offers its Optimus electronic power steering (EPS) for single- and quad-powered boats.

2. (paper) Quadrille, marked with squares.

Derived terms

• quad paper

Verb

quad (third-person singular simple present quads, present participle quadding, simple past and past participle quadded)

1. (typography, letterpress typography, transitive, intransitive) To fill spaces in a line of type with quads. Also quad out.
2. (typography, phototypesetting and digital typesetting, transitive, intransitive) To align text with the left or right margin, or centre it.
3. (transitive) To twist four individually insulated conductors together as two pairs of twisted wires that are then twisted together.
   • 1901, Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, page 232:

     Can you "quad" the cable?

   • 1961, Telecommunications, page 690:

     The star quadding of the wires ensures a reduction in the diameters of cables and their weight […]

   • 1965, Telephone Cable Splicing: Cable Terminations and Cable Repairs, United States. Department of the Army, page 906:

     The conductors in quadded cables are tinned and may also be enameled.

4. (intransitive) To ride a quad bike.
   • 2006 April 27, Christopher Thrall, “There’s a mud-eating grin to be seen after every quadding adventure”, in Vue Weekly, Edmonton, page 31:

     visibility was perfect and mud was plentiful for our quadding adventure.

Derived terms

• quad out

See also

• quadr-, quadri-
• quadru-
• quin
• Quad (unit) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Basque

Etymology

From English quad.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kwad/ [kwað̞]
• Rhymes: -ad

Noun

quad inan

1. quad bike

Declension

Declension of quad (inanimate, ending in consonant)

	indefinite	singular	plural
absolutive	quad	quada	quadak
ergative	quadek	quadak	quadek
dative	quadi	quadari	quadei
genitive	quaden	quadaren	quaden
comitative	quadekin	quadarekin	quadekin
causative	quadengatik	quadarengatik	quadengatik
benefactive	quadentzat	quadarentzat	quadentzat
instrumental	quadez	quadaz	quadez
inessive	quadetan	quadean	quadetan
locative	quadetako	quadeko	quadetako
allative	quadetara	quadera	quadetara
terminative	quadetaraino	quaderaino	quadetaraino
directive	quadetarantz	quaderantz	quadetarantz
destinative	quadetarako	quaderako	quadetarako
ablative	quadetatik	quadetik	quadetatik
partitive	quadik	—	—
prolative	quadtzat	—	—

Further reading

• “quad”, in Euskaltzaindiaren Hiztegia [Dictionary of the Basque Academy], Euskaltzaindia

Catalan

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈkwat]

Noun

quad m (plural quads)

1. Clipping of quadricicle.

Dutch

Etymology

From English quad.

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

quad m (plural quads, diminutive quadje n)

1. quad, quad bike

Italian

Noun

quad m (invariable)

1. quad bike

Middle Scots

Alternative forms

• quaid, queid
• quyed (dialectal)

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English qued, from Old English cwēad.

Pronunciation

• (Early Scots) IPA^(key): [kwad]
• (Early Middle Scots) IPA^(key): [kwad]
• (Late Middle Scots) IPA^(key): [kwad]

Adjective

quad (comparative quader)

1. (dated) evil, wicked, bad [from 13th century]

Usage notes

Only the comparative is attested.

Further reading

• “quad”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.

Old High German

Verb

quad

1. first/third-person singular past indicative of quedan

Polish

quad

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English quad.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkwat/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -at
• Syllabification: quad
• Homophone: kład

Noun

quad m inan

1. quad bike

   Synonyms: czterokołowiec, wszędołaz, kład

Declension

Declension of quad

	singular	plural
nominative	quad	quady
genitive	quada	quadów
dative	quadowi	quadom
accusative	quad	quady
instrumental	quadem	quadami
locative	quadzie	quadach
vocative	quadzie	quady

Further reading

• quad in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• quad in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Spanish

Noun

quad f (plural quads)

1. all-terrain vehicle

Further reading

• “quad”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10