Also 6 wadde. [f. WAD sb.1]
I. To form into a wad.
1. trans. To lay up (the cut haulm of beans, peas, etc.) in bundles.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., ix. § 101. 256. After the sithe they wad both Beans and Peas.
1733. W. Ellis, Chiltern & Vale Farm., 341. They take care to Wad them [sc. beans] as soon as Mown, and put them into single small Parcels.
1778. [W. Marshall], Minutes Agric., Observ., 93. In dry weather, Pease properly wadded with a Prong are much sooner ready to carry than those left in hard bundles by the Foot and Sithe.
1805. R. W. Dickson, Pract. Agric., II. 891. When … crops of this sort that have run to seed,… are left … it is the usual practice to cut and wad them in the same manner as for peas.
1813. T. Batchelor, View Agric. Bedfordsh., 109 (E.D.D.). The process of wadding, and gleaning beans … is rather a tedious one.
2. To press (loose or fibrous material) into a small compass or into a close, compact mass; U.S. to roll up tightly. Also with up.
1675. Evelyn, Terra (1776), 74. If you lay about them [sc. the roots] any fern-brakes or other trash capped with a little Earth … let it not be Wadded too close.
1896. N. Y. Weekly Witness, 23 Dec., 16/4. A most peculiar cholera-remedy was in use in Persia. It consisted in wadding-up a leaf from the Koran and forcing it down the patient’s throat.
1915. Mrs. Stratton-Porter, M. O’Halloran, viii. 178. ‘Can you help me?’
‘Sure!’ said Mickey, wadding his cap into his back pocket.
3. transf. To pack (persons) closely.
1850. Thackeray, Pendennis, lviii. An honest holiday-maker with his family wadded into a tax-cart.
II. To furnish with or as with a wad or wadding.
4. To put a wad in (a gun, a cartridge).
1579. Digges, Stratiot., 113. His Gunner … to wadde and ramme, to cleanse, scoure, and coole the Peeces.
1881. Greener, Gun, 301. When loaded with shot, the cartridges are wadded in the Erskine machine.
1894. Crockett, Mad Sir Uchtred, 83. He had wadded it [sc. a gun] with three leaves of the Bible.
5. To line, fill out, pad, as with wadding; to quilt.
1759. J. G. Cooper, trans. Gresset’s Ver-Vert, IV. 212.
| His skin with sugar being wadded, | |
| With liquid fires his entrails burn’d. |
1788. Cowper, Gratitude, 11. This wheel-footed studying chair,… Wide-elbow’d, and wadded with hair.
1842. Thackeray, Miss Tickletoby’s Lect., iii. Straight the King’s great chair was brought him … Languidly he sunk into it, it was comfortably wadded. Ibid. (1846), Bk. Snobs, xiv. Lord Glenlivat … playfully wadded the insides of the boots with cobbler’s wax. Ibid. (1848), Lett., 1 Nov. You say your prayers in carved stalls wadded with velvet cushions.
1862. C. A. Collins, A Cruise upon Wheels, II. xi. 206. My thick flannel dressing-gown, lined and wadded.
1883. Miss M. Betham-Edwards, Disarmed, xxiii. She wore a loose gown of crimson satin, wadded after the fashion of the olden time.
fig. 1872. Geo. Eliot, Middlem., xx. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life,… we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.
† 6. ? To rub with a wad. Obs.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xix. (Roxb.), 184/2. Wad or wash him [sc. a horse] round.
7. To plug (the ears) with wads.
1876. ‘Ouida,’ Winter City, iii. They have wadded their ears and … would not hear.
