quad

Etymology 1

From Latin.

noun

1. A serving of four shots of espresso.
2. (chess) A kind of round-robin tournament between four players, where each participant plays every other participant once.
3. (Mormonism) The Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price bound in a single volume.
4. A poster, measuring forty by thirty inches, advertising a cinematic film release.

adj

1. Having four shots of espresso.

Etymology 2

Clippings.

noun

1. (informal) A quadrangle (quadrangular courtyard).
   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." 1880, William Blades, The Enemies of Books, page 38
   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. 2014, Walker Orenstein, for Norwest Asian Weekly, Cherry trees from Japan to grace UW campus
   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. 2021-11-21, Nicole Sperling, “How Do You Make Teen Comedies Today? Buy a High School.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
2. (informal) A quadruplet (infant).
3. (informal, computer graphics) A quadrilateral.
   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. 2010, Tony Mullen, Claudio Andaur, Blender Studio Projects: Digital Movie-Making, page 91
4. (informal) The quadriceps muscle.
   Aesthetics aside, if you train your quads while neglecting your hamstrings, you're setting yourself up for an eventual injury. 2010, Adam Garett, “Fried Hams”, in Reps!, 17:23
5. (informal) A quadriplegic person.
   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. 2005, Nancy H. Blose, Behind the Curtain: Living as a Quadriplegic, Lulu Publishing, published 2015, pages 74–75
6. (informal) Quadruplex videotape.
7. (informal) A quadrupel beer.
8. (informal) A quadcopter.
   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. 2017-05-19, Ed Darack, “A Brief History of Quadrotors”, in Air & Space Magazine
9. A skate with four wheels.
   These are the quads I recommend for newbies. 2018, Elicia Hyder, Lights Out Lucy: Roller Derby 101
   When you can skate, inline, ice, quads are all equally enjoyable as long as they are of good enough quality. 2014, Brigitte Legendre, A Skater's Business, page 16
10. (skating) Clipping of quadruple (“kind of jump in figure skating”).

adj

1. (poker slang) Of or relating to quads.
2. quadrile

verb

1. (transitive) To twist four individually insulated conductors together as two pairs of twisted wires that are then twisted together.
   Can you "quad" the cable? 1901, Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, page 232
   The star quadding of the wires ensures a reduction in the diameters of cables and their weight […] 1961, Telecommunications, page 690
   The conductors in quadded cables are tinned and may also be enameled. 1965, Telephone Cable Splicing: Cable Terminations and Cable Repairs, United States. Department of the Army, page 906

Etymology 3

Abbreviation

noun

1. A quad bike.
2. Abbreviation of quadrillion BTU. (10¹⁵ BTU)

verb

1. to ride a quad bike

Etymology 4

1785 Quads. pl, 1847 quads, verb 1876. From the abbreviation quad., for obsolete quadrat. Keyboard command is named for the verb sense.

noun

1. (letterpress typography) A blank metal block used to fill short lines of type.
   “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. April 16 1853, Charles Dickens, Household Words, number 160, page 148
   Horizontal spacing is further divided into multiples and fractions of the em. The multiples are called quads. The fractions are called spaces. 1979, Marshall Lee, Bookmaking, page 110
   Other larger spaces – known as quads – were used to space out lines. 2005, Phil Baines and Andrew Haslam, Type & Typography, 2nd ed, p 91
2. (printing slang) A joke used to fill long days of setting type.
3. (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.

verb

1. (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.