Tad

How to spell tad

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce tad

What does tad mean?

1. nounA small amount or slight degree of something.
2. adverbTo a small degree; slightly.

Tad in a sentence

• noun

  The soup needs just a tad more salt.

• adverb

  The presentation ran a tad too long for the afternoon slot.

• noun

  The rent is a tad higher than we budgeted for.

• adverb

  These shoes feel a tad tight around the toes.

Where does tad come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word 'tad' began in nineteenth-century American English as an affectionate term for a small child or young boy, and it almost certainly comes from 'tadpole', the immature form of a frog. 'Tadpole' itself was built in Middle English from 'tadde', an old word for 'toad', and 'poll', meaning 'head', because the creature looks like little more than a swimming head. From the sense of a small youngster, 'tad' drifted by the late 1800s into its modern, very common use as 'a small amount' or, adverbially, 'slightly'. The journey from a wriggling toad-head to the casual phrase 'a tad too much' is a neat reminder that the word has always carried the idea of something small. Because it is short and phonetically plain, the spelling itself causes almost no trouble.

How the word is built

• tad (single root, no affixes; probably a clipped form of 'tadpole')