VAD

• V.A.D.

Initialism.

VAD (plural VADs)

1. (now historical) The Voluntary Aid Detachment, a women′s first-aid organisation active during World War I and World War II, or a member of this detachment.
   • 1925, Ford Madox Ford, No More Parades, Penguin 2012 (Parade's End), p. 328:

     ‘You've not been caught in bed with a V.A.D.?’ Tietjens asked.

   • 1929, Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, Folio Society 2008, p. 32:

     ‘A nurse is like a doctor. It takes a long time to be. A VAD is a short cut.’

   • 1998, David Ellis, D. H. Lawrence: Dying Game 1922-1930: The Cambridge Biography of D. H. Lawrence‎, page 29:

     If Mollie Skinner was ever technically a member of a Voluntary Aid Detachment in India she would have been an unusually experienced and well-qualified one. VADs were more frequently lady amateurs […] .

   • 2006, Desmond Keenan, Post-Famine Ireland: Social Structure: Ireland as it Really Was‎, page 176:

     There was also the Dublin University VAD, or Voluntary Aid Detachment branch of Dublin University Women graduates and undergraduates.

   • 2008, Celia M. Kingsbury, Chapter 2: Food Will Win the War, Kathleen LeBesco, Peter Naccarato (editors), Edible Ideologies: Representing Food and Meaning, State University of New York Press, 46,

     Smith, pseudonym for freelance writer Evadne Price, obtained the war journal of a V.A.D. by the name of Winifred Young, who had turned over the diary with the stipulation that Price remain faithful to the tone.

• adv, adv.