Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a person, esp. a young boy.

[1833		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) 14 Sept. n.p.: A society of young gentlemen, who are well known by the appellation of ‘Tads or Jimmy’s taddies’].
1842		Whip & Satirist of N.Y. & Brooklyn (NY) 11 June n.p.: The ‘Tads,’ ‘Rowdies,’ and ‘Loafers,’ who usually render more public places such undesirable rendezvous.
1845		Subterranean 25 May 2/4: A parcel of lazy, moneyless, shiftless porter house ‘tads’ and loungers, who occupy the chairs of customers, and watch each man as he enters to catch an invitation to drink.
1857		Life in Boston and N.Y. (Boston, MA) 11 Apr. n.p.: Those ‘gambling, loafing Tads’.
1877		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (4th edn) 688: Little tads, small boys. Old tads, graybeards, old men.
1896		Ade Artie (1963) 57: He’s a great old tad — has charge o’ the wagons for one o’ them Franklin street wholesale houses. They say he makes good money.
1902		C.L. Cullen More Ex-Tank Tales 84: The youngsters were all small tads, boys and girls.
1905		J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:i 97: tad, n. Child. ‘He’s a little tad.’.
1914		Ade ‘The New Fable of the Private Agitator’ Ade’s Fables 4: Ambition came, with Sterling Silver Breast-Plate and Flaming Sword, and sat beside a Tad aged 5.
1971		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 6: If you sassy tads interrupt me one more time I’m gonna paste one o’ yuz right in the mouth! [Ibid.] 7: We had a lotta zingy lingo when I was a tad – sharp riffs like ‘Right on!’ and ‘Peace, brother!’.

2. (US) one who attempts to avoid paying a bill.

1845		Cincinnati Misc. I 240: Among a certain class in the eastern cities, [...] the word Tad, is applied to one who don’t nor won’t pay [DA].
1900		Ade More Fables in Sl. (1960) 147: He would go into a Grocery with another tricky Tad.

3. (orig. US) a small amount; usu. as a tad, slightly.

1940		‘More Tenn. Expressions’ AS XV:4 448/1: Tad, a very small amount. ‘I want to borrow a tad of salt.’.
1983		S. King Christine 118: Her sticker price was just a tad under $3000, but he ‘jewed em down’, as he put it, to $2100 with the trade-in.
1998		K. Sampson Awaydays 9: We always call them The Spics, because they look a tad Latino.
2001		A. Sillitoe Birthday 141: You were doing a tad over fifty in a thirty mile zone. [...] We clocked you, Arthur, just for the fun of it.
2007		S. Maloney Sucked In 70: I might be able to rustle up a tad more information.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 180: He weaved a tad [...] El Jefe was half in the bag.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 517: I felt a tad guilty.