from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A wad for a gun; specifically, a circular wad, cut with an implement known as a wad-cutter out of pasteboard, cardboard, or felt, used as wadding to keep the ammunition in place either in a gun-barrel or in a paper or metal shell.
Sorry, no etymologies found.
He knew Black Moran by reputation, and he knew that unless a miracle happened his own life was not a worth a gun-wad.
Our leader's pistol flashed a circle that drove the rabble back, and the ringleader went hurling head foremost through the main hatch with force like to flatten his skull to a gun-wad.
A man close to me picks up a black gun-wad an 'sings out,' I have ut, '--' Good may ut do you. 'sez I.
A man close to me picks up a black gun-wad an 'sings out, "I have ut."
The cultivated lands of Hyde are not chaffy -- that is, when dry, like tinder, liable to take fire from a spark originated by a gun-wad.
Once an Indian fired through a port-hole into the bedchamber, and the burning gun-wad landed on one of the straw bedticks.
Blacked and burnt, his Scotch bonnet was compressed to a gun-wad on his head.