spud
English
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spud
- /spʌd/
Rhymes with -ʌd
Where it comes from
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.
noun spuds
- A potato. We were peeling spuds on afternoon detail back of the lodge at summer camp — Billy Dean and I, and two or three more — and as usual arguing about whether the camp work ought to be done that way or not[…]
- A hole in a sock. He leans over to one side to get the light, as he darns a hole in the heel of a sock. He is getting pretty smart at it now, and no longer makes spuds in the sock to chafe his heels.
- A type of short nut (fastener) threaded on both ends. With the tank resting upside down on an old towel or blanket, use a spud wrench or a large pair of channel-type pliers to loosen the spud nut.
- Anything short and thick. As I turned out of the wood, I heard the shrill tone of infant wailing; and as I came towards the cottage, I saw a fine flaxen-headed urchin, some six or seven years old, stamping and beating himself with his clenched little spuds of fists, in a perfect ecstasy of passion […]
- A piece of dough boiled in fat.
- A testicle.
- A dagger.
- A digging fork with three broad prongs.
- A tool, similar to a spade, used for digging out weeds etc. 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
- 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.
- A short central rod in a lighting fixture, for attachment to the light. This spigot (spud) is used to support the lamp, and allows it to be turned from side to side. The spud fits into a socket in a bracket (receptable^([sic])) or a C-clamp. This fixture enables you to suspend the lighting fixture from an overhead bar […]
verb spuds · spudding · spudded
- To dig up weeds with a spud. There was thistle-spudding all over the Marsh; an army of thistles, an army of spudders.
- 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. A rope called the jerk line is attached to the wrist pin of the band-wheel crank, brought inside the derrick, and attached to the part of the drilling cable which extends from the crown pulley to the bull-wheel shaft by a curved metal slide called a spudding shoe. (See fig. 8.)
- To remove the roofing aggregate and most of the bituminous top coating by scraping and chipping.
- To set up a recreational vehicle (RV) at a campsite, typically by leveling the RV and connecting it to electric, water, or sewer hookups.
proper noun
- A game for three or more players, involving the gradual elimination of players by throwing and catching a ball.
Translations
Every language
noun informal: potato
| Português | batata |
|---|---|
| Français | patate |
| Deutsch | Kartoffel |
| Italiano | patata |
| Ελληνικά | πατάτα patáta |
| Русский | карто́фелина kartófelina |
| עברית | בּוּלְבּוּס búlbus |
noun digging fork
| Português | escardilho |
|---|
name child game
| Français | Dauphin Dauphine |
|---|---|
| Italiano | La palla avvelenata |
Talk about this word "spud." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/spud. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. spud. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/spud "spud." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/spud.Cite this
@misc{spud_2026,
title = {spud},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/spud},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
