Also 7 wadt, 8 wadd. [Of obscure origin.]
1. A local name for plumbago or black lead; also called black wad. Also dial. a black-lead pencil (see Eng. Dial. Dict.).
1614. in Mem. Lit. & Philos. Soc. Manch., Ser. II. (1819), III. 169. Except the wad holes and wad, commonly called black cawke, within the commons of Seatollor, or elsewhere within the commons and wastes of the said manor [of Borrowdale].
1698. Plot, Black-lead, in Phil. Trans., XX. 183. The Mineral Substance, called, Black Lead … found only at Keswick in Cumberland, and there called, Wadt, or Kellow.
1836. Penny Cycl., V. 225 (Borrowdale). The most remarkable product of the valley is graphite, plumbago, or black-lead (provincially wad).
1872. Jenkinson, Guide Eng. Lakes (1879), 129. The lead, or plumbago, locally termed ‘wad,’… is the best material ever discovered for making lead pencils.
2. An impure earthy ore of manganese.
1783. Phil. Trans., LXXIII. 284. Some Experiments upon the Ochra friabilis nigro fusca of Da Costa…; and called by the Miners of Derbyshire, Black Wadd.
1796. Kirwan, Elem. Min. (ed. 2), II. 465. Mr. Wedgewood dissolved a quantity of black wadd in a large quantity of nitrous acid heated.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, Wadd, is the provincial name … of an ore of manganese in Derbyshire, which consists of the peroxide of that metal, associated with nearly its own weight of oxide of iron.
1884. Athenæum, 16 Aug., 212/3. The not very interesting manganese mineral wad.
3. Comb., as (sense 1) wad-hole, -lead, -mine, -pencil.
1614. *Wad hole [see 1].
1780. G. Jars, Voy. Metall., II. 554 (Philol. Soc. Trans., 1908, p. 148). Mine de plomb pour les crayons nommés Black-lead or *Wad-Lead.
1747. Gentl. Mag., XVII. 583. *Wadd mines in the Cumberland Dialect, signifies the black-lead mines.
1836. Penny Cycl., V. 225 (Borrowdale). The wad mine.
1825. Brockett, N. C. Gloss., s.v., A *wad pencil.
