▪ I. dud colloq. and dial.
(dʌd)
Chiefly pl. duds (dʌdz). Also 5–7 dudde.
[Origin unknown.]
1. † An article of clothing, a coarse cloak (obs.). Usually (now always) pl. = Clothes. (slang or colloq. depreciatory or humorous).
| 14.. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 568 Birrus vel Birrum, i. grossum vestimentum, a dudde. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 134/2 Dudde, clothe, amphibilus. 1567 Harman Caveat 86 We wyll fylche some duddes. a 1605 Montgomerie Flyting w. Polwart 345 When thy duddes are bedirtten. 1651 Randolph, etc. Hey for Honesty iii. i. Wks. (1875) 431 By these good stampers, upper and nether duds, I'll nip from Ruffmans of the Harmanbeck. 1790 Burns Jolly Beggars 8th Recit., They toom'd their pocks, an' pawn'd their duds. 1831 Scott Jrnl. 5 Mar., I promised to shake my duds and give them a cast of my calling. 1861 Ramsay Remin. Ser. ii. 126 He's mair need o' something to get duds to his back. 1866 Mrs. Stowe Lit. Foxes 26 Girls knit away small fortunes..on little duds that do nobody any good. 1881 Trollope Marian Fay iii. (Farmer), To see her children washed and put in and out of their duds. |
| attrib. a 1529 Skelton Poems agst. Garnesche 46 In dud frese ye was schryned With better frese lynyd. |
b. slang and dial. Effects in general, ‘things’.
| 1662 Head & Kirkman Eng. Rogue (Farmer) All your duds are binged avast. a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Dudds, Cloaths or Goods. 1780 R. Tomlinson Slang Pastoral ix. 2 No duds in my pocket, no sea-coal to burn. 1877 E. Peacock N.W. Linc. Gloss., Duds, workmen's tools, clothes, personal possessions of small value. |
2. pl. Rags, ragged clothes, tatters. (Rarely sing.)
| 1508 Kennedie Flyting w. Dunbar 384 Cryiand caritas at durris..Bairfut, brekeles, and all in duddis vpdost. 1768 Ross Helenore 40 (Jam.) A hair-brain'd little ane wagging a' wi' duds. 1822 Scott Nigel v, A ragged rascal, every dud upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other. 1823 Galt R. Gilhaize I. 81 (Jam. s.v. Cuff) He fell into the corner of the room like a sack of duds. 1880 Besant & Rice Seamy Side xix, She..was clothed in nothing but old rags and duds. 1889 Besant Bell of St. Paul's III. 21. |
3. Applied contemptuously to a person. rare.
(In quot. 1870, perh. = scarecrow: see dudman)
| 1825 Jamieson s.v., Applied to a thowless fellow..‘He's a soft dud.’ Roxb. 1840 Carlyle Let. in Froude Life in Lond. I. vii. 186 A wretched Dud called —, member for — called one day. 1870 Putnam's Mag. Feb. (Farmer), Think of her? I think she is dressed like a dud; can't say how she would look in the costume of the present century. |
4. A counterfeit thing, as a bad coin, a dishonoured cheque; in the war of 1914–18 applied spec. to an explosive shell that failed to explode; hence (cf., however, sense 3) applied contemptuously to any useless or inefficient person or thing. (Cf. next.)
| 1897 Daily News 14 Jan. 2/2 He admitted that he knew that he ought not to have sold the piracies, and that such works were known as ‘Duds’. 1908 Westm. Gaz. 28 Jan. 4/1 Gambling with ‘Duds’... A ‘dud’ car is a worthless contraption, which..has arrived at a stage when it would be dear at any price. 1908 Captain Apr. 23/2 We want talent, not duds. 1915 Blackw. Mag. Feb. 141 Our weary hearts rejoice When Silent Susan sends us down a dud! 1915 ‘Boyd Cable’ Between Lines 254 One of these [shells] was a dud an' didn't burst. 1920 Punch 1 Sept. 168/1 He..has..been irritated by his school-boy son derisively addressing him as an ‘old dud’. 1923 Public Opinion 30 Nov. 531/1 All the torpedoes they carry are duds. 1928 Galsworthy Swan Song iii. xvi. 345 It's when you don't understand that you feel such a dud. 1951 R. Graves Poems & Satires 39 An expert on shell-fish, otherwise a dud. |
Hence ˈdudman, a scarecrow. dial.
| 1674 Blount Glossogr. (ed. 4), Dudman, a Maulkin or Effigies set up to fright Birds from Corn or Grain sowed. 1787 Grose Prov. Gloss., Dudman, a scarecrow, also a ragged fellow. 1825 in Brockett N.C. Gloss. 1844 J. T. J. Hewlett Parsons & W. x, He was just like a dudman. |
▪ II. dud, a.
(dʌd)
[app. adj. use of dud 3, 4.]
Counterfeit; failing to answer to its description or to perform its function; worn out; useless; unsatisfactory.
| 1903 Daily Chron. 29 July 9/4, I..got him to give me half a crown for a dud ring. 1904 Ibid. 13 May 6/3 Wanted comedy and dramatic sketches. Something with life and go in it. No Dud stuff required. 1908 [see prec.]. 1915 H. Rosher In R.N.A.S. (1916) 130 As luck would have it, the weather was dud. 1917 Blackw. Mag. May 803/2 It was soon afterwards that our engine went dud. 1917 ‘Contact’ Airman's Outings 267 They wanted a plan of some new defences on which the Hun had been busy during the spell of dud weather. 1918 W. J. Locke Rough Road xviii, ‘It's a dud sort of a place, Durdlebury,’ said he. ‘Dud?’ He laughed. ‘It never goes off.’ 1929 Star 21 Aug. 14/4 Hitherto, he has met with rotten luck in Africa. Seemed to strike one dud patch after another. 1948 J. Betjeman Coll. Poems (1958) 159 ‘You going to the Hanks's hop to-night?’..‘It's pretty dud though,—only lemonade.’ 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 7 Feb. 73/4 The dud violinists rehearsing in the next room. |