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trument used to urge on a beast; hence, any necessity that urges or stimulates. The daily goad urging him to the daily toil. Macaulay.

A goad for driving oxen.

An elephant goad with a sharp spike and hook, resembling a short-handled boat hook. [India] Kipling.

d run to meet what he would most avoid Milton. He carefully avoided every act which could goad them into open hostility. Macaulay.

To goad, drive, hunt, throw, or pitch. [Slang, Eng.] Dickens.

To make sharp or keen, figuratively; to incite; to exasperate; to goad; to urge or egg on. [Obs.] By such reasonings, the simple were blinded, and the malicious edged. Hayward.

A sharp-pointed rod; a goad.

One who uses a gad or goad in driving.

To goad or urge forward; to set on; to provoke; to incite; -- used chiefly with reference to evil actions; as to instigate one to a crime. He hath only instigated his blackest agents to the very extent of their malignity. Bp. Warburton.

hich pricks, penetrates, or punctures; a sharp and slender thing; a pointed instrument; a goad; a spur, etc.; a point; a skewer. Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary. Shak. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Acts ix. 5.

A shrub (Euonymus Europæus); -- so named from the use of its wood for goads, skewers, and shoe pegs. Called also spindle tree.

A pointed instrument for pricking or puncturing, as a goad, an awl, a skewer, etc.

To prick; to goad; to progue. [Scot.]

A sharp point; a goad. [ Scot. & Local, U. S.] -- v. t.

To cause a smart in. "A goad that . . . smarts the flesh." T. Adams.

That which goads to action; an incitement. Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights and live laborious days. Milton.

To excite as if with a goad; to excite, rouse, or animate, to action or more vigorous exertion by some pungent motive or by persuasion; as, to stimulate one by the hope of reward, or by the prospect of glory. To excite and stimulate us thereunto. Dr. J. Scott.

A goad; hence, something that rouses the mind or spirits; an incentive; as, the hope of gain is a powerful stimulus to labor and action.

A goad; incitement. Shak.

Piercing, or capable of piercing, with a sting; inflicting acute pain as if with a sting, goad, or pointed weapon; pungent; biting; as, stinging cold; a stinging rebuke. -- Sting"ing*ly, adv. Stinging cell. (Zoöl.) Same as Lasso cell, under Lasso.