spud

== English == === Etymology === From Middle English spudde (“small knife”). Origin unknown; probably related to Danish spyd, Old Norse spjót (“spear”), German Spieß (“spear; spike; skewer”). Compare English spit (“sharp, pointed rod”). The use of the term for a potato perhaps first appeared in New Zealand and Australian dialect and slang. === Pronunciation === IPA(key): /spʌd/ enPR: spŭd Rhymes: -ʌd === Noun === spud (plural spuds) (informal) A potato. [from 1845] (informal) A hole in a sock. (plumbing) A type of short nut (fastener) threaded on both ends. (obsolete) Anything short and thick. (obsolete, US, dialect) A piece of dough boiled in fat. (slang, usually in the plural) A testicle. (obsolete) A dagger. [from mid-15th c.] A digging fork with three broad prongs. A tool, similar to a spade, used for digging out weeds etc. [from 1660s] 1728, Jonathan Swift, A Pastoral Dialogue, 1910, William Browning (editor), The Poems of Jonathan Swift, Volume 2, 2004, Gutenberg eBook #13621, My love to Sheelah is more firmly fixt, / Than strongest weeds that grow these stones betwixt: / My spud these nettles from the stone can part; / No knife so keen to weed thee from my heart. 1885, Richard Jefferies, After London: or Wild England, 2004 [1905], Gutenberg eBook #13944, Deprived of motion by the blow of the club, it can, on the other hand, be picked up without trouble and without the aid of a dog, and if not dead is despatched by a twist of the Bushman's fingers or a thrust from his spud. The spud is at once his dagger, his knife and fork, his chisel, his grub-axe, and his gouge. It is a piece of iron (rarely or never of steel, for he does not know how to harden it) about ten inches long, an inch and a half wide at the top or broadest end, where it is shaped and sharpened like a chisel, only with the edge not straight but sloping, and from thence tapering to a point at the other, the pointed part being four-sided, like a nail. A barking spud; a long-handled tool for removing bark from logs. A movable post through a sleeve in the hull of a work barge to anchor it to the bottom of a body of water. (film, television) A short central rod in a lighting fixture, for attachment to the light. ==== Derived terms ==== ==== Translations ==== === Verb === spud (third-person singular simple present spuds, present participle spudding, simple past and past participle spudded) (transitive) To dig up weeds with a spud. (drilling, transitive) To begin drilling an oil well; to drill by moving the drill bit and shaft up and down, or by raising and dropping a bit. (roofing, transitive) To remove the roofing aggregate and most of the bituminous top coating by scraping and chipping. (camping, transitive) To set up a recreational vehicle (RV) at a campsite, typically by leveling the RV and connecting it to electric, water, or sewer hookups. ==== Derived terms ==== ==== Related terms ==== ==== Translations ==== === Proper noun === spud A game for three or more players, involving the gradual elimination of players by throwing and catching a ball. ==== Translations ==== === References === spud (game) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia === Anagrams === Dsup, PDUs, PSDU, UDPs, dups, puds == Lushootseed == === Etymology === From English spoon. === Noun === spud spoon == Yola == === Etymology === From Middle English spudde. === Pronunciation === IPA(key): /spʊd/ === Noun === spud knife === References === Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 69