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spud

Pronunciation: /spʌd/

The English word “spud” has 17 meanings listed here.

noun

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

verb

  1. To dig up weeds with a spud.
  2. 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.
  3. To remove the roofing aggregate and most of the bituminous top coating by scraping and chipping.
  4. 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

  1. A game for three or more players, involving the gradual elimination of players by throwing and catching a ball.

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.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.