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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

bud.

A newly sprouted leaf or blossom that has not yet unfolded.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/bʌd/

  1. A newly sprouted leaf or blossom that has not yet unfolded.

    countable · uncountable
    After a long, cold winter, the trees finally began to produce buds.

  2. Something that has begun to develop.

    countable · figuratively · uncountable
    breast buds

  3. A small rounded body in the process of splitting from an organism, which may grow into a genetically identical new organism.

    countable · uncountable
    In this slide, you can see a yeast cell forming buds.

  4. Potent cannabis taken from the flowering part of the plant (the "bud"), or marijuana generally. Cannabis that has been taken from the flowering part of the plant intended to be smoked.

    Australia · Canada · US · countable · plural-normally · slang · uncountable · usually
    You got any buds?

  5. Potent cannabis taken from the flowering part of the plant (the "bud"), or marijuana generally. Marijuana.

    Australia · Canada · US · slang · uncountable · usually
    Hey bro, want to smoke some bud?

  6. A weaned calf in its first year, so called because the horns are then beginning to bud.

    countable · uncountable

  7. A pretty young girl.

    countable · dated · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English budde, bodde (“bud, seed pod”), from Old English *budde, from Proto-West Germanic *buʀdā, from Proto-Germanic *buzdǭ (compare archaic German Butte (“rosehip”), Swedish dialect bodd (“head”)), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew-, *bu- (“to swell”). Compare also German Low German Butte, Butt (“bud”), Dutch bot (“bud”), regional German Butz, Butzen (“seed pod; apple core”), German Low German Haagbutt ("rosehip"; Haagbudden (“rosehips”, plural)).

verb/bʌd/

  1. To form buds.

    intransitive
    The trees are finally starting to bud.

  2. To reproduce by splitting off buds.

    intransitive
    Yeast reproduces by budding.

  3. To begin to grow, or to issue from a stock in the manner of a bud, as a horn.

    intransitive
    Seeds of dissent were budding among the recruits.

  4. To be like a bud in respect to youth and freshness, or growth and promise.

    intransitive

  5. To put forth as a bud.

    transitive

  6. To graft by inserting a bud under the bark of another tree.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English budde, bodde (“bud, seed pod”), from Old English *budde, from Proto-West Germanic *buʀdā, from Proto-Germanic *buzdǭ (compare archaic German Butte (“rosehip”), Swedish dialect bodd (“head”)), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew-, *bu- (“to swell”). Compare also German Low German Butte, Butt (“bud”), Dutch bot (“bud”), regional German Butz, Butzen (“seed pod; apple core”), German Low German Haagbutt ("rosehip"; Haagbudden (“rosehips”, plural)).

noun/bʌd/

  1. Buddy, friend.

    Canada · US · informal
    I like to hang out with my buds on Saturday night.

  2. Synonym of guy, term of address for a man or person.

    Canada · informal

  3. Brother.

    informal · rare
Where this word comes from

Back-formation from buddy.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.