crud
/krʌd
/noun [mass noun] informal
1A substance which is considered unpleasant or disgusting, typically because of its dirtiness: use a good soap compound to remove accumulated crud...
- Its dry-film protectant repels dust, sand and other crud that sticks to ‘wet’ oils and silicones.
- But there are lots of cars on the road that still use traditional coolant, and that should be drained and replaced every couple of years to remove any built-up crud.
- It comes as a very nasty surprise to many of us to find that so much crud could have accumulated where we put our nice clean bodies to rest.
1.1Heavy snow on which it is difficult to ski: there’s no way I can ski crud...
- Do this at any kind of snow, deep, crud, ice, piste, anything, and always have a incredible quick response and a perfect edge holding.
- A stable core helps you ‘set your teeth and drag it out ‘when you are trying to arc turns through the cut up crud or your ski gets caught in a rut.’
- Better to be early and wait for perfect velvet rather than make a sweaty climb just to turn around and ski crud.
2Nonsense: the usual crud which passes itself off as a smart twenty-something comedy...
- Then again, if I end up taking it too seriously then it could just be too depressing when it ends up complete crud at the end!
- I would much rather go to the cinema and see something with a script which is half literate with a good 10-15 belly laughs and god forbid actually makes me thing than the usual crud which passes itself off as a smart twenty-something comedy.
- In this article, they discuss the issues with people posting crud on public forums, and mention this: He added Canadian Internet forums are being shut down across the country.
3 [count noun] A contemptible person.
Derivatives
cruddy
/ adjective (cruddier, cruddiest) ...- The box stores sit in the middle of already existing major shopping areas, beside subway stops, and have the opposite effect, if anything, revitalizing cruddy areas and triggering some urban renewal.
- They booked a tour of small, cruddy bars across the United States and Canada in advance of the album's release, expecting only moderate attendance.
- Well, you can read all about my cruddy Saturday afternoon of football here if you're a masochist, or you can just poke toothpicks in your eye while you're in the shower if you really want to recreate the experience.
Origin
Late Middle English: variant of curd (the original sense). The earliest modern senses, 'filth' and 'nonsense' (originally US), date from the 1940s.
curd from Late Middle English:
The original English word for curds was crud, which only acquired its sense ‘filth, rubbish’ in the USA in the 1940s. The swapping round of sounds in a word is called metathesis and is particularly common with ‘r’ and a vowel (compare bird). Since the late 16th century curdle has been used for the action of forming curds.