wad

noun

1. Plumbago, graphite.

   “Wad was worth the equivalent of £1,300 a tonne, and some people felt it was worth risking a whipping to smuggle it out.”

2. Any black manganese oxide or hydroxide mineral rich rock in the oxidized zone of various ore deposits.

phrase

1. Acronym of works as designed.
2. Acronym of where's all the data?, commonly used when referring to the video game Doom.

verb

Etymology: Probably short for Middle English wadmal (“woolen cloth”), from Old Norse váðmál (“woolen stuff”), from váð (“cloth”) + mál (“measure”). See wadmal. Cognate with Swedish vadd (“wadding, cotton wool”), German Wat, Watte (“wad, padding, cotton wool”), Dutch lijnwaad, gewaad, watten (“cotton wool”), West Frisian waad, Old English wǣd (“garment, clothing”) (English: weed). More at weed, meal.

1. To crumple or crush into a compact, amorphous shape or ball.

   “She wadded up the scrap of paper and threw it in the trash.”

   “[…] if you lay any fearnbrakes or other trash about them to entertain the moisture, and skreen it from the heat, let it not be wadded so close, or suffer’d to lie so long, as to contract any mustiness, but rather loose and easie, that the Air may have free intercourse, and to break the more intense ardours of the scorching Sun-beams.”

2. To wager.
3. To insert or force a wad into.

   “to wad a gun”

4. To stuff or line with some soft substance, or wadding, like cotton.

   “to wad a cloak”

   “[…] upon his Body were several Flannel Wastcoats, a Cassock of thick Cloth, with a thick wadded Gown, and about his Shoulders the Quilt which he had taken from off the Bed.”