Other forms: goaded, goads, goading
To goad is to keep provoking somebody into acting. Goad him into a fight, goaded beyond endurance, goad a response.
The repetition is the point — goading is not one provocation but a series, and it usually takes into. The noun is a pointed stick used to drive cattle, which is exactly the image. Note that the word is Old English and related to a root meaning a spear.
1verbgoadTo keep provoking somebody into acting.
“The older boys goaded him into jumping off the wall.”
2nounpointedA pointed stick used to drive cattle.
“The farmer drove the oxen forward with a long wooden goad.”
goad is a provoking.
Old English gad means a spiked stick for driving cattle, from a Germanic root meaning a point or spear.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵʰey-
Proto-Germanic
*gaidō
Old English
gād — goad
Middle English
gode
English, today
goad
Built from
From Middle English gode, from Old English gād (“goad”), from Proto-Germanic gaidō (compare Old Norse gedda (“pike (fish)”), lng gaida (“spear”)), from Proto-Indo-European ǵʰey- (compare Old Irish gath (“spear”), Sanskrit हिन्वति, हिनोति (“to urge on, throw”), हेति (“missile, projectile”)). a doublet of gad and yard; see also xyston.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire