Goad

verb

To incite or persuade a person to take action
To herd livestock with a stick

noun

A pointed staff used to herd cattle
A person or thing that spurs someone to action

Usage

Most of us have been in a situation where the only way to secure the outcome we want is by steering someone towards helping you get it. Whether it was badgering your significant other into springing for the more expensive pair of shoes or getting the car salesperson to cut a discount, all of us have had to exert a bit of influence to bend people toward our interests at some point or another. The smooth-talking it takes to pull off feats like that requires us not just to encourage others, but to really goad them.

To goad is to persuade or otherwise rouse a person to action. Although this effort to incite is usually accomplished with some form of spoken or written appeal, one can goad an individual using any means at one's disposal: instead of verbally asking your friend to volunteer themselves for the dunk tank, you could give an insinuating look from them to the tank while pointing at it. A person usually goads another person, but the word can be used more imaginatively to describe the relationship between two abstract or inanimate things. For instance, the setting sun could goad the stars into shining from the darkness left in its wake. Goad also implies that the person being persuaded is in some degree opposed or reluctant to performing the desired action, making goad more akin to "badger" than "convince."

Channeling its original usage, goad can also illustrate the herding of cattle with a staff-like implement. Goad in its noun form can also describe the pointed tool with which cattle are spurred forward, as well as a source of inspiration or motivation in general. Though the verb form of goad is more often used to characterize one person's persuasion of another than shepherding animals, the noun form is more frequently used in conjunction with livestock than as a persuasive force or entity.

Example: The child had learned how to goad his parents into giving him candy every time he asked.

Example: The ranch hand had to goad her herd another 100 miles before the livestock could be loaded on trucks and shipped to market.

Example: His cattle was so stubborn that his goad broke from constant prodding before it got them to move.

Example: The prospect of being selected valedictorian was just the goad she needed to study day and night for the final exam.

Origin

Though the predominant modern use of goad is as a verb, which started appearing in English in the mid- to late-1500s, the word actually originated in its noun form, which had been in use since the 12th century. In Old English, it took the form of gad, which meant "spearhead" or "arrowhead," but also referred to a pointed herding tool. As the Proto-Germanic gaido, related to the Lombardic gaida, it meant "spear." The word goad also traces its lineage to the Old English word for "spear," which is gar, along with the Old Irish term for it, gae.

Derivative Words

Goaded: Goaded is the past tense of the verb form of the word, depicting past instances of persuasion.

Example: She goaded her coworker into trading shifts with her so she could have a three-day weekend.

Goads: Besides being the plural of goad's noun usage, this word serves as the present tense conjugation of its verb form.

Example: Whenever he is too exhausted from housework to cook, he goads his wife into going out for dinner.

Example: The lead ranch hand distributed goads to the new recruits and immediately sent them off to pens to get to work.

Example: The cookies on the teacher's desk served as enticing goads for the students to finish their classwork early.

In Literature

From Upton Sinclair's The Jungle:

If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy.

In Sinclair's iconic and scathing indictment of early 20th century American capitalism, he attributes the great vitality of the American economy to the success employers had at inciting, or goading, their workers to work extremely hard for the most meager wages possible.

Mnemonic

When you goad someone, they go do something for you.
To goad is how you get a goat to go.