chad

See also Chad

English

Etymology

Uncertain; predates the Chadless punch (see the Snopes article on this supposed origin); possibly from Scots chad, "river gravel", or the English slang term chat, "louse".

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -æd

Wikipedia

Noun

chad (countable and uncountable; plural chad or chads)

1. (uncountable) Small pieces of paper punched out from the edges of continuous stationery, punched cards, paper tape etc.
   • 2000, Barbara and David P. Mikkelson, Snopes.com, "Urban Legends Reference Pages"

     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 Ross A Lake, U.S. Patent 2,255,794, filed May 20, 1939

     "Prior devices ... have been arranged to cut out the perforations completely ... thereby producing chads or waste material which often present difficult problems of disposal."[1]

   • 1959, J. W. Freebody. Telegraphy.

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

   • 2000, Supreme Court of the United States (per curiam). Bush v. Gore.

     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.

Derived terms

• dimpled chad
• hanging chad
• pregnant chad
• swinging-door chad
• tri-chad

See also

• Appendix:American Dialect Society words of the year

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Middle English

Etymology

See ch-.

Verb

chad

1. I had

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Palauan

Noun

chad

1. person

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Welsh

Noun

chad f

1. Mutated form of cad.