Meaning of Spud | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A potato.
   informal
2. A game for three or more players, involving the gradual elimination of players by throwing and catching a ball.
3. A hole in a sock.
   informal
4. A type of short nut (fastener) threaded on both ends.
5. Anything short and thick.
   obsolete
6. A piece of dough boiled in fat.
   US, dialectal, obsolete
7. A testicle.
   plural-normally, slang
8. A dagger.
   obsolete
9. A digging fork with three broad prongs.
10. A tool, similar to a spade, used for digging out weeds etc.
11. A barking spud; a long-handled tool for removing bark from logs.
12. A movable post through a sleeve in the hull of a work barge to anchor it to the bottom of a body of water.
13. A short central rod in a lighting fixture, for attachment to the light.

Equivalents

Examples

“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[…]”

“You can praise God by peeling a spud if you peel it to perfection. Don't compromise. Compromise is a language of the devil. Run in God's name, and let the world stand back and in wonder.”

“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.”

“He was getting tall too, and his trousers were short even though his turn-ups had been turned down, and he'd got a spud in his socks where his shoe rubbed where he trod over trying to walk bow-legged to look like a cowboy.”

“His wife was darning a sock, running a needle and yarn across and back, over and under, up and down, gradually filling in the big spud-hole in her husband's sock.”

“(Already becoming absorbed in his feet through the giant spud in his sock) Anyway, I'm er, I'm sorry. A quite unnecessary embarrassment for you. (He removes sock completely, begins rhythmic rubbing of webs)”

“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.”

“For removing or tightening radiator spud nut.”

“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 […]”

“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.”

“"I rigged up a contraption to hold off those stinking beasts, and I spent a happy day there with a spud."”

“A most respectable old Johnnie, don't you know. Doesn't do a thing nowadays but dig in the garden with a spud.”

“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 […]”

CEFR level