▪ I. crud
(krʌd)
[Obs. and dial. var. of curd n.]
1. See curd n. 1.
2. A despicable or undesirable person or thing; nonsense, rubbish. Cf. crut3. slang (orig. U.S.).
| 1940 Amer. Speech XV. 212 A ‘crud’ is a fellow who is slovenly in his personal appearance and with his possessions. 1942 Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §825/23 Unattractive girl,..crud, crumb, [etc.]. 1943 Amer. Speech XVIII. 153/2 Crud, food, usually unpalatable. 1955 ‘T. Sturgeon’ in ‘E. Crispin’ Best SF 2 (1956) 147 Would you say that..the writer of all this crud, believes..in what he writes? 1966 ‘L. Lane’ ABZ of Scouse 23 Crud, rubbish. 1966 ‘K. A. Saddler’ Gilt Edge i. 9 Can't stand the man. A real crud. |
b. A real or imaginary disease. slang (orig. U.S. Army).
| 1945 Reader's Digest Apr. 109 We also have what the men call ‘crud’, a skin outbreak like ringworm. 1945 Time 13 Aug. 76 Jungle rot; New Guinea crud; the creeping crud: GI names for any and every kind of skin disease. 1947 Amer. Speech XXII. 304/2 Crud (the), this word..is used more commonly than any other single Army or Navy term for imaginary disease. 1948 Ibid. XXIII. 295/1 In the Pacific theater, crud was colloquial for all kinds of diseases, though it was most often used for the various forms of fungus infection. 1966 F. Shaw et al. Lern yerself Scouse 56, I got Bombay crud, I am suffering from looseness of the bowels. |
c. An undesirable impurity, foreign matter, etc. (see quots.). slang.
| 1950 Gloss. Terms Nuclear Sci. (Nat. Res. Council, U.S.) 41/1 Crud, a slang term referring to an undesirable impurity or foreign material arising in a process. 1959 New Scientist 26 Mar. 696/1 ‘Crud’ (Chalk River Unidentified Deposit), an impolite word applied to rust deposited on the fuel elements in the high radiation zones which exist in the heart of a reactor. 1962 in D. E. Barnes et al. Newnes Conc. Encycl. Nuclear Energy 160/2 In corrosion problems crud may be defined as particulate corrosion products..deposited on the surfaces of circulating water systems... The term is also applied to..many other undesirable residues..appearing in plant processes. |
▪ II. crud(de, cruddle, cruddy
obs. or dial. ff. curd, curdle, curdy.