If someone told you they were going to gadwaddick, what do you think they meant?
Here are a few possible meanings of to gadwaddick:
- to drag or tail along, to walk draggingly
- to go on a pleasure trip, to jaunt, to gad about
- to saunter, to walk slowly and clumsily
It is in fact the second, and is used in Norfolk dialect in the east of England. The first definition is for the word to drail, which is used in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Dorest, Somerset in the the southwest of English, and the third definition is for the word to dadge, which comes from the dialects of Northumbria and Cumbria in the north of England.
These words all come from The English dialect dictionary by Joseph Wright, which was published in 1900.
A gadabout is someone who restlessly moves from place to place, seeking amusement or the companionship of others, or in other words, someone who gads about [source], or gadwaddick about in Norfolk.
The verb to gad means “to move from one location to another in an apparently random and frivolous manner”. It comes from the Middle English word gadden (to hurry, to rush about) [source].
A gad is a greedy and/or stupid person, at least in northern England and Scotland, and comes from the Middle English gade (a fool, simpleton, rascal, scoundrel), from the Old English gada (fellow, companion, comrade, associate), from the Proto-West Germanic *gadō, from the Proto-Germanic *gadô/*gagadô (companion, associate), from the Proto-Indo-European *gʰedʰ- (to join, unite) [source].
I lived in Norfolk for around twelve years, and I have never heard this word used! Also, the phrase “someone who … gadwaddicks about in Norfolk” should read “gadwaddick about”, since the final -s is never used in the 3rd person singular, present tense, in Norfolk dialect.