1746 Exmoor Scolding (ed. 3) i. 7 Tha tedst net carry whome thy Pad.

1828 W. Carr Dial. Craven (ed. 2) Pad, a small pack or bundle.

1888 F. T. Elworthy W. Somerset Word-bk. Pad,..2. Used by sellers of woollen yarn. The square-shaped package of yarn in which it is generally made up for sale, consisting of twelve bundles or hanks, and each bundle consisting of a great many skeins varying..according to the fineness of the yarn—a skein being always a fixed number of yards, and the pad a fixed weight.

1888 F. T. Elworthy W. Somerset Word-bk. Pad,..3. [Used] by spinners. A bundle of yarn consisting of twenty-four small hanks, each consisting of four skeins, each skein measuring 360 yards; consequently a pad of yarn always represented the same number of yards, whatever its size or weight.

1767 Philos. Trans. 1766 (Royal Soc.) 56 273 The wound was then filled with pads of lint.

1789 C. O'Brien Calico Printer's Assistant I. E viij Some treacle and lamp-black may be mixed and diffused with a pad..over the face of the print.

1807 S. Cooper First Lines Pract. Surg. I. i. xiii. 56 The pad..to be placed immediately over a graduated compress, which is to be put immediately over the wound in the artery.

1813 J. Thomson Lect. Inflammation 299 Application of bolsters or pads of lint..to prevent the matter exuding.

1881 Trans. Obstetr. Soc. 22 188 Dr. Galabin showed the new ladies' sanitary towels... They were extremely light and soft, and contained a pad of absorbent cotton wool.

1908 Lancet 21 Mar. 907/2 A pad of cotton wool is inserted into the paper casing of these cigarettes, which effectually prevents dust and shreds of tobacco entering the mouth.

1984 J. Phillips Machine Dreams 14 I kept a big bowl of gauze pads on the table.

1992 Pract. Householder Nov. 61/3 Apply Furniglas wood dye by brush or using a pad of lint-free cloth.

1843 Sussex Agric. Express 8 July 8/1 (advt.) A great variety of Cricket Bats, Stumps, Balls, Knee Pads, and Gloves.

1850 F. W. Lillywhite in F. Lillywhite Guide to Cricketers (ed. 3) 12 Pads and gloves, to guard your legs and hands, must also be obtained.

1882 Daily Tel. 17 May Watson was bowled off his pads.

1955 I. Peebles Ashes x. 100 Bailey tried to hook Johnston and miscued so that the ball bounced off his pads.

1977 Washington Post (Nexis) 24 Apr. (Sports section) d12 One teammate jumped on his back and several more crowded around, popping him on the pads and slapping hands all the way back to the bench.

1994 Toronto Star 11 Dec. d5/5 We would..take our boots off and put them under the bench and put our skates and pads on.

1867 Rep. Artisans Visit Paris Universal Exhib. ii. 138 Pads were being made, taking about six shuttles. Common ribbons, with the ground shot cotton, and a very thin warp.

1882 S. F. A. Caulfeild & B. C. Saward Dict. Needlework 376/1 Pads, Watered Doubles or silk ribbons of extra thickness, made in various colours, plain, or striped in mixed colours, expressly manufactured for use instead of watch chains.

1905 N.E.D. (at cited word) Pad,..13. A trade term for a double-faced ribbon, used as a watch-guard, and in masonic decorations; also for an extra-thick ribbon used for stiffening the waists of women's dresses, etc.

1895 W. Rye Gloss. Words E. Anglia 157 Pad,..(2) Dried cow-dung, formerly collected for fuel.

1971 New Scientist 1 July 36/2 The dung is also the incubation medium of many helminth parasites of stock, the eggs of which are passed in the pads.

1976 Australasian Express 3 Sept. 2/1 Dung pads are being eaten at a rapid rate in the northern half of Australia.

1915 Sherman, Clay & Co. Catal. Band Instruments 88 The silent drum (practice pad). Gives same rebound as Snare Drum but absolutely noiseless... Padded calfskin head, with metal rim on wood base.

1968 New Yorker 18 May 56 I started playing drums in junior high. I got a practice pad and sticks and a Paul Yoder method book.

1978 Village Voice (N.Y.) 19 June 32/4 Hanging on the wall..was a flat..black slab. Michael stood in front of it, sticks in hand, hitting the 12 square, spongy pads across the bottom of its surface, creating sensational syncopations that blared from the speakers.

1981 Percussive Notes Winter 48/3 The drum pads themselves are plexiglass, available in hexagon, heart, or bat-wing shapes.

2002 Computer Music Jan. 10/3 All the drum pads are polyphonic, so sounds no longer cut themselves off.

1935 Textile World 85 1860/2 Formation of the patches is a danger signal..and—as is true of all danger signals in the pad dyehouse—should be taken heed of at once if serious trouble is to be avoided.

1951 Jrnl. Soc. Dyers & Colourists 67 508/1 In dyeing practice, the nearest approach to printing technique was the so-called pigment-padding process, where the vat dye was applied on the pad as a suspension of unreduced dye.

1961 S. R. Cockett & K. A. Hilton Dyeing of Cellulosic Fibres xi. 358 The essential parts of a pad are a nip of two or more rollers, a trough, and means of applying pressure to the nip.

1998 Textile Horizons June 30 (advt.) The applicant should have in-depth experience in production and process control of continuous singeing and desizing, pre-treatment, chain mercerizer, pad steam and pad dry dyeing machines, stenters, [etc.].

1938 S. Beckett Murphy 167 The padded cells, known to the wittier as the ‘quiet rooms’, ‘rubber rooms’ or, in a notable clip ‘pads’.

1964 G. L. Cohen What's Wrong with Hospitals? vii. 147 The side-rooms are in fact ‘pads’ remaining from the pre-tranquillizer regime.

1980 S. McConville in L. Michaels & C. Ricks State of Lang. 528 Alternatively he may be taken to the pads (padded cells) in the hospital wing.

1949 Gloss. Guided Missile Terms (GM 51/8) (Res. & Devel. Board, U.S. Dept. Defense) 75 Pad, a permanent or semipermanent base constructed to support a missile-launching device.

1953 Air Univ. Q. Rev. Fall 32 (caption) To withstand the pressures and intense heat of the exhaust blast during take-off, the 100-foot-square pad must be two-and-one-half feet thick.

1960 Washington Post 1 Dec. d13/1 The mushrooming uses to which the 100-by-100 foot concrete helicopter ‘pad’ at the Pentagon is being put today.

1964 Mrs. L. B. Johnson White House Diary 24 Mar. (1970) 101 Saturn I will be used to send an unmanned Apollo spacecraft into orbit—in fact, one is on the pad..now for launching later this spring.

1994 New Scientist 28 May 28/1 The Delta Clipper-Experimental (DC-X) rocket ship..lowered itself onto a modest concrete pad.

1688 R. Holme Acad. Armory iii. 368/1 (Joiner's tool) Pad, is the square piece of Wood in which the Bit is fixed.

1703 Moxon's Mech. Exercises (new ed.) 94 You ought to be provided with Bitts of several sizes, fitted into so many Padds.

1815 J. Smith Panorama Sci. & Art I. 115 In the end of one of these limbs, which is called the pad, the piece of steel by which the boring is performed, is inserted.

1875 Carpentry & Joinery 22 It also goes by the name of the pad saw, on account of the handle in which it is inserted. This handle, or pad, after being turned, is bored quite through and is fitted with a long brass ferrule.

1881 F. Young Every Man his own Mechanic §319 The pads or patent tool-handles with tools contained within, and varying in number from 12 to 20, are very useful.

1964 W. L. Goodman Hist. Woodworking Tools 175 A still more advanced method of fitting the pad (with its bit) into the stock is shown in the carved wooden brace (dated 1764) from Stockholm.

1705 W. Derham in Philos. Trans. 1704–05 (Royal Soc.) 24 1789 It is necessary..that the Power..do at all times exert the very same force upon the Pads or Pallets.

1884 F. J. Britten Watch & Clockmakers' Handbk. (new ed.) 183 Pad, the pallet of the anchor recoil escapement for clocks.

1867 W. H. Smyth & E. Belcher Sailor's Word-bk. 514 Pad, or Pad-piece, in ship-building, a piece of timber placed on the top of a beam at its middle part, in order to make up the curve or round of the deck.

1931 Electronics Feb. 508/1 The term ‘pad’ as commonly employed in connection with audio frequency circuits, refers to an attenuation device used to reduce the power at a point in a circuit by some desired value... Regarded as an electric circuit, a pad consists of a one-section artificial line whose elements are pure resistances.

1967 D. H. Hamsher Communication Syst. Engin. Handbk. vi. 31 Two-wire trunk circuits may contain a switchable 2-db pad.

1992 V. Capel Public Addr. Syst. iii. 41 A π-type pad has the same properties as the T-pad and can be used as an alternative, having the same number of resistors.

1960 N. M. Cooke & J. Markus Electronics & Nucleonics Dict. 322/1 Pad,..2. Terminal area.

1969 New Scientist 13 Nov. 344/1 An engineer calls up from a computer memory the appropriate one of eight pad relocation patterns.

1987 Electronics & Wireless World Jan. 37/4 The device..will be supplied in a Jedec standard 84-pad chip carrier.

1607 R. Parker Scholasticall Disc. against Antichrist i. iv. 194 As for them whom this heresie has so paded and benummed, that they thinke they are well enough.

1727 D. Eaton Let. 20 Apr. (1971) 110 The roads in all our lanes hereabouts are very bad, and the slows are as deep as in winter, but the fields are padded.

1764 Museum Rusticum (1765) 3 xxi. 88 Whether the earth be in such a state of cohesion as to be padded under the horses feet.

1814 Sporting Mag. 43 242 The cottagers'..gardens..have been padded like sheep-folds.

1855 R. Browning Childe Roland xxii Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank Soil to a plash.

1888 S. O. Addy Gloss. Words Sheffield 168 Snow is said to be well padded when a path has been trodden thereon.

1920 M. Gyte Diary 21 Feb. (1999) 252 The snow is plentiful in the fields. The roads are padded down a bit and Nestlé's dray came twice.

1996 C. I. Macafee Conc. Ulster Dict. 245/1 Pad, trample, form a path by treading.

2000 Advertiser (Adelaide) (Nexis) 20 Sept. 10 A squad was assigned to protect a paddock of turf that is now being padded down in the Sydney Olympic Stadium.

1724 London Gaz. No. 6239/4 Stolen.., a..Mare,..it Trots and Pads.

1740 H. Bracken Farriery Improv'd (ed. 2) II. i. 41 This Sort..are soonest taught to pace or pad well.

1639 J. Ford Ladies Triall v. sig. I3^v One Can..cant, and pick a pocket, Pad for a cloake, or hat, and in the darke, Pistoll a stragler for a quarter Ducate.

1688 J. Knatchbull Diary in Notes & Queries (1864) 3rd Ser. 6 2/2 For fear of some of the black guard of Canterbury that had horsed themselves, and had been padding on the road ever since Sunday.

1724 N. Bailey Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict. (ed. 2) (at cited word) To Pad,..also to rob on the Road on Foot.