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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

spud.

A potato.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/spʌd/
  1. A potato.

    informal
  2. A hole in a sock.

    informal
  3. A type of short nut (fastener) threaded on both ends.

  4. Anything short and thick.

    obsolete
  5. A piece of dough boiled in fat.

    US · dialectal · obsolete
  6. A testicle.

    plural-normally · slang
  7. A dagger.

    obsolete
  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.

Where this word comes from

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.

verb/spʌd/
  1. To dig up weeds with a spud.

    transitive
  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.

    transitive
  3. To remove the roofing aggregate and most of the bituminous top coating by scraping and chipping.

    transitive
  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.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

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.

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

Where this word comes from

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, 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.