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Spud
Definitions
- 1 A game for three or more players, involving the gradual elimination of players by throwing and catching a ball.
- 1 A potato. informal
"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[…]"
- 2 a sharp hand shovel for digging out roots and weeds wordnet
- 3 A hole in a sock. informal
"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."
- 4 an edible tuber native to South America; a staple food of Ireland wordnet
- 5 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."
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- 6 Anything short and thick. obsolete
"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 […]"
- 7 A piece of dough boiled in fat. US, dialectal, obsolete
- 8 A testicle. plural-normally, slang
- 9 A dagger. obsolete
- 10 A digging fork with three broad prongs.
- 11 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 so keen to weed thee from my heart."
- 12 A barking spud; a long-handled tool for removing bark from logs.
- 13 A movable post through a sleeve in the hull of a work barge to anchor it to the bottom of a body of water.
- 14 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 […]"
- 1 To dig up weeds with a spud. transitive
"There was thistle-spudding all over the Marsh; an army of thistles, an army of spudders."
- 2 produce buds, branches, or germinate wordnet
- 3 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. transitive
"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.)"
- 4 initiate drilling operations, as for petroleum wordnet
- 5 To remove the roofing aggregate and most of the bituminous top coating by scraping and chipping. transitive
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- 6 To set up a recreational vehicle (RV) at a campsite, typically by leveling the RV and connecting it to electric, water, or sewer hookups. transitive
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.
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.
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.
See also for "spud"
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