Slate Pears Game 375: Aug. 24, 2026

New Pears every day at noon! This is Pears Game 375. The longest word in Game 374 was TANTAMOUNT.

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Got a word to suggest? Let us know at [email protected] . Recent additions: SHIESTY, BOOF.

In a recent Pears game I asked, “Is there such a thing as a single scad? Like, you can have scads of whatever, but can you have a single scad?” Thanks to player Alice S., who sent the following wonderful explanation, which I will quote in full:

It’s a tough one to nail down, but the most likely origin for ‘scads’ was the cornish mackerel. It was called a ‘scad’, and could be found in overwhelming multitudes in the waters off of Cornwall. Cornish immigrants to the US seem to have brought it in the late 1800’s, where it was adopted at first as a term for a dollar. You can see this in novels around the turn of the century- this one https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50494/50494-h/50494-h.htm , published 1902, has sentences like

” I’ain’t never mentioned it, but my land hain’t got no mortgage on it, an’ I could raise a few scads, to he’p keep up yore intrust an’ taxes till you could see yore way ahead.””

This one https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18683/18683-h/18683-h.htm , published in the same year, has the sentence

“To be sure. You must blow your own horn, my boy, if you want to get on. Humbug ‘em right and left, if you look to see the scads come in fast.” “I wouldn’t lie just to make a little money,” said Ralph so earnestly that the artist broke into a laugh.

As you can see, the usage was typically plural- ‘I need some money’ is ‘I could use some scads’. This association with abundance gradually became generally applicable: a decade later, we start seeing usage to mean ‘a lot of something’. We see a similar pattern when we use “A wealth of” something to mean a lot.

This book, published 1915: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/23448/pg23448-images.html has the passage:

We’re going to cover it with the flowers she liked best, first the wild ones from the woods, and then the garden blossoms–pansies and forget-me-nots and English daisies. I know where the prettiest vi’lets grow,–just scads and oodles of ‘em–down by the stone bridge over Bartlett’s Creek in Parker; and Hicks is going to help us transplant them.

This book, published 1923: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/61236/61236-h/61236-h.htm , has the passage:

“I haven’t any beau. Mr. Kelly, I wish you wouldn’t talk to me about such things.”

“Sure, and I won’t if ’tis a sore subject. Don’t ye be minding if ye haven’t got one—there’ll be scads av them after a while.