Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act of going about idly, or of moving from place to place from mere curiosity; an idle visit.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- Going about much, needlessly or without purpose.
- in quarrying, a car which carries a drilling machine so arranged as to drill a line of holes.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb Present participle of
gad .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word gadding.
Examples
-
My brother, who works the milk rounds with my father and whom I've been closer to than anyone in my family and is my greatest supporter. has now adopted the air of someone getting on with the real business of life, and not "gadding" after pie-in-the-sky notions of stardom and the high life.
Broken Music, A Memoir Sting 2003
-
Cosseted all winter in socks, your feet now are most likely gadding about in strappy sandals, flip-flops and peep-toe wedges.
Wanted for Assault Christina Binkley 2011
-
Barnham Water has set my brains a-gadding, and I fear I shall not get rid of the subject untill I have given it a suit of cloaths.
Letter 96 2009
-
While I wouldn't want to speculate on her mindset, this took me back to when I was gadding about, back in the day.
Rape: let's take more care when we talk about it | Barbara Ellen 2011
-
Cosseted all winter in socks, your feet now are most likely gadding about in strappy sandals, flip-flops and peep-toe wedges.
Wanted for Assault Christina Binkley 2011
-
To be perfectly honest, I'm pleased for young Ravel - he's getting out of Manchester and moving to the east end of London, where he'll be gadding about with lots of new friends and disposable income as he makes a fresh start.
-
Off he will go, gadding about the world dispensing wisdom and hankies in equal measure.
Archive 2008-02-03 2008
-
Was that really Samantha Cameron gadding around a Tower Hamlets housing estate in Converse trainers and a plaid shirt, telling everyone to grow their own lettuces?
There's a wrinkle in attitudes to women on TV Barbara Ellen 2010
-
Off he will go, gadding about the world dispensing wisdom and hankies in equal measure.
-
Surely this was also a good reason not to be seen to be gadding about on a vanity project just now (one is reminded of Margaret Thatcher nipping off to Paris in the midst of her leadership demise) but to have your nose well down to the domestic grindstone, however boring, so that the crew has the sense of a Captain at the helm, steadying the ship in a storm.
An Ill-Judged Trip 2007
brtom commented on the word gadding
"He encircled his gadding hair with a coronal of vineleaves ..."
Joyce, Ulysses, 14
January 21, 2007