Definition of "quad"

Gilt-backed books on gilded shelf or table caught the eye, and as you turned your glance from the luxurious interiors to the well-shorn lawn in the Quad with its classic fountain also gilded by sunbeams, the mental vision saw plainly written over the whole "The Union of Luxury and Learning."

1880, William Blades, The Enemies of Books, page 38

Every spring, the quad on the University of Washington (UW) campus transforms from a peaceful green space to a bustling habitat for hundreds of shuttering cameras, families, and onlookers.

2014, Walker Orenstein, for Norwest Asian Weekly, Cherry trees from Japan to grace UW campus‎

The teenage couple is lounging on the lawn outside a high school, taking advantage of a free period between classes in that age-old way: making out on the quad.

2021 November 21, Nicole Sperling, “How Do You Make Teen Comedies Today? Buy a High School.”, in The New York Times‎

Tris and quads have different areas of functionality. In real-time graphics, tris are the norm because they provide the most basic geometric representations of planes.

2010, Tony Mullen, Claudio Andaur, Blender Studio Projects: Digital Movie-Making, page 91

Aesthetics aside, if you train your quads while neglecting your hamstrings, you're setting yourself up for an eventual injury.

2010, Adam Garett, “Fried Hams”, in Reps!, 17:23

The worse was the realization that this was my new reality. This too was Bill's debut as a husband of a quad and his first social gathering since June 22.

2005, Nancy H. Blose, Behind the Curtain: Living as a Quadriplegic, Lulu Publishing, published 2015, pages 74–75

Today you can buy quadrotor drones—also known as quadcopters—of just about any kind, for just about any price. The extremely wealthy can buy gold-plated quads, and the rest of us can buy tiny plastic ones.

2017 May 19, Ed Darack, “A Brief History of Quadrotors”, in Air & Space Magazine‎

These are the quads I recommend for newbies.

2018, Elicia Hyder, Lights Out Lucy: Roller Derby 101

When you can skate, inline, ice, quads are all equally enjoyable as long as they are of good enough quality.

2014, Brigitte Legendre, A Skater's Business, page 16

Can you "quad" the cable?

1901, Report of the Industrial Commission on Transportation, page 232

The star quadding of the wires ensures a reduction in the diameters of cables and their weight […]

1961, Telecommunications, page 690

The conductors in quadded cables are tinned and may also be enameled.

1965, Telephone Cable Splicing: Cable Terminations and Cable Repairs, United States. Department of the Army, page 906

“Quadrats, sir. We call 'em quads.” . . Quads are the spaces left between the paragraphs that come white on the paper. If you look here, at this page that is set-up, you will see that they are deeper than the spaces left between the words and letters—regular little trenches.

1853 April 16, Charles Dickens, Household Words‎, number 160, page 148

Horizontal spacing is further divided into multiples and fractions of the em. The multiples are called quads. The fractions are called spaces.

1979, Marshall Lee, Bookmaking, page 110

Other larger spaces – known as quads – were used to space out lines.

2005, Phil Baines and Andrew Haslam, Type & Typography, 2nd ed, p 91