Word.ws English Dictionary

chad

UK/t͡ʃæd/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/t͡ʃad/

chad noun: small pieces of paper punched out from the edges of continuous stationery, or from ballot papers, paper tape, punched cards, etc. Also the alternative spelling of Chad.

chad: small pieces of paper punched out from the edges of continuous stationery, or from ballot papers,...
Image: Marcin Wichary, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

chad (countable and uncountable, plural chad or chads)

  1. (uncountable) Small pieces of paper punched out from the edges of continuous stationery, or from ballot papers, paper tape, punched cards, etc.
    • 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.2011 June 1, David P. Mikkelson, “Chad: Does the word ‘chad’ come from the Chadless keypunch, invented by a Mr. Chadless?”, in Snopes.com, retrieved 07 Sep 2016
  2. (countable) One of these pieces of paper.
    • Prior devices of the type according to the present invention have been arranged to cut out the perforations completely at a single movement, thereby producing chads or waste material which often present difficult problems of disposal.1939 May 20, Ross A. Lake, Printing Perforating Telegraph Apparatus, US Patent 2255794
    • The small hinged discs of paper, called ‘chad’, remain attached to the body of the tape.1959, J[ohn] W[illiam] Freebody, Telegraphy, London: Isaac Pitman & Sons, →OCLC

Contraction

chad

  1. (West-Country, contraction, obsolete) I had
    • Chad et in my meend, and zo chave still. Bet chawnt drow et out bevore tha begen'st agen, and than chell.1839, An Exmoor Scolding, London: John Russell Smith, page 11

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Chad

Chad

  1. A male given name from Old English; also a modern nickname for Charles, Chadwick and similar-sounding names.
    • "What else? Anyway, here's the genealogy: Charles Junior's only son is Charles the Third - like royalty. He goes by Chip - Cassie's daddy. The mom is Cindy. The dead son was Chad - Charles the Fourth."
      "All Cs," I said. "Sounds like they like order."1993, Jonathan Kellerman, Devil's Waltz, Random House, published 1998, →ISBN, page 26
    • 'He used to be called Trevor Buss.'
      'Chad? I don't believe you.' […]
      'He changed his name into Muhammad Shahabuddin Ali-Shah.'
      'No!'
      'He'd insist on the whole name. He played football and his mates got fed up saying, "Pass the ball, Muhammad Shahabuddin Ali-Shah" […] No one passed to him. So he...1995, Hanif Kureishi, The Black Album, Faber and Faber, →ISBN, pages 88, 90
  2. (UK) The British version of the "Kilroy was here" graffiti.

Noun (2) capitalized: Chad

Chad (plural Chads)

  1. (Internet, incel slang) A very handsome, genetically gifted and sexually active man whom women find sexually attractive; at times seen as an alpha male of a group.
    • They are united by the fact that women will not have sex with them, usually attributed to shallow obsessions with looks or superficial personality, and by their hatred of “Chads” and “Stacys”, the men and women who have sex.2018 April 25, Alex Hern, “Who are the 'incels' and how do they relate to Toronto van attack?”, in The Guardian
    • Short for “female humanoid”, it’s used in place of the word “woman” to depict how, in an incel’s view, women are not entirely human, but are instead robot-like androids who only crave sex with Chads.2018 April 28, Kate Wilson, “Last week in tech: sex robots”, in The Georgia Straight

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Chad

Chad

  1. A country in Central Africa. Official name: Republic of Chad.
    • Though foreigners did play some part in fighting as mercenaries for Gadhafi during the bloody Libyan war, the IOM and local leaders in Chad say the vast majority of Chadians, like Mohammed, were working to send remittances home.2012 April 18, David McKenzie, “Chad’s migrant workers pay price for Libya conflict”, in CNN
  2. Lake Chad (a freshwater lake at the junction of Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon in Central Africa).

Also used as

chad is also the alternative spelling of Chad.

chad meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

chad in Hindi

चैड, चड्

chad in Marathi

चॅड

chad in Urdu

چاڈ, چڈ

chad in Bengali

চ্যাড
More languagesFewer languages
chad in Telugu
చాడ్, చాద్, చడ్
chad in Malayalam
ചാഡ്, ചാദ്
chad in Kannada
ಚಾಡ್, ಚಡ್, ಚಾದ್
chad in Punjabi
ਚੱਡ, ਚੱਦ, ਚੈਡ
chad in Gujarati
ચૅડ, ચાડ, ચડ્
chad in Odia
ଚାଡ୍, ଚାଦ୍, ଚାଡ଼
chad in Nepali
चड्, चाद्

Examples of chad in a sentence

  • Chad used to work as a coal miner, but couldn't handle the constant grunge.
  • Chad always carries a gun for his own security.
  • Chads can get away with most things because of the halo effect."

All 15 example sentences with chad

Forms of chad

Noun
pluralchad
pluralchads
pluralChads
alternative formchad
Proper noun
alternative form (dated)Tchad

Plural of chad: chad or chads

Origin of chad

Uncertain; possibly from the English slang term chat (“louse”). The word predates the chadless punch, which therefore cannot be its origin, and a derivation from Scots chad (“river gravel”) stated in some dictionaries is now thought to be nothing more than guesswork.

From ch- + had, from ich + had.

From Middle English Chadde, from Old English Ċeadda, of obscure meaning; name of a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon saint, revived in the 20th century. The sense of “alpha male” originates from an apparent stereotype that men with such a name tend to bear that temperament, first attested in c. late 1990s in Chicago, Illinois (specifically "successful white man, yuppie"), but in common usage only as of the late 2010s via 4chan and California slang.

Words formed from chad

Phrases with chad

Words that rhyme with chad

26 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about chad

What does chad mean?
Chad means small pieces of paper punched out from the edges of continuous stationery, or from ballot papers, paper tape, punched cards, etc.
What is chad in Hindi?
Chad in Hindi is चैड, चड्. See Chad meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is chad?
Chad can be a noun, a contraction or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce chad?
Chad is pronounced /t͡ʃæd/ (UK).
What is the plural of chad?
The plural of chad is chad.

Words near chad in the dictionary

  1. chactids
  2. chactoid
  3. chactoids
  4. chacun a son gout
  5. chacun à son goût
  6. chad
  7. Chad Basin
  8. chad bean
  9. chad beans
  10. chad box
  11. chad boxes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chad (page history and authors); Chad (page history and authors); chad (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chad (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chad (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chad (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chad (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chad (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chad (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chad (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chad (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chad (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chad (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-chad.ogg, En-us-Chad.ogg.

Cite this entry: “chad.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chad. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.