Word.ws English Dictionary

dud

/dʌd/

dud noun: a device or machine that is useless because it does not work properly or has failed to work, such as a bomb, or explosive projectile.

Noun

dud (plural duds)

  1. (informal) A device or machine that is useless because it does not work properly or has failed to work, such as a bomb, or explosive projectile.
    • The only amusing highlight was Gudgeon having managed to exploit U.S. codebreaking efforts to ambush and destroy the submarine I-173, albeit not for the lack of the Mark 14's trying to sabotage the effort, as the torpedo that had hit the sub had refused to detonate; it seemed, however, that the...2021 December 29, Drachinifel, 21:03 from the start, in The USN Pacific Submarine Campaign - The Dark Year (Dec'41 - Dec'42), archived from the original on 19 Jul 2022
    • Alzheimer's Drug Aduhelm Went From Being Hailed A 'Game Changer' To A Dud2024 February 1, Joshua P. Cohen, “Innovation - Healthcare”, in Forbes
  2. (informal) A failure of any kind.
    • At the end of the day, the vast majority of primary schools are vibrant, friendly places and you may struggle to choose one because they all seem so great. Primary schools tend to have the feelgood factor. If you just aren't feeling it, this one's probably a dud.2014 September 23, A teacher, “Choosing a primary school: a teacher's guide for parents”, in The Guardian
    • I got stuck with a seatmate who was a conversational dud.
    1. (informal) A loser; an unlucky person.
    2. (informal) A lottery ticket that does not give a payout.
  3. (informal, obsolete) Clothes, now always used in plural form duds.

Adjective

dud (not comparable)

  1. Useless; failing; ineffective.
    • […] they're flying in the duddest of dud weather to hold the Germans back.2019, Max Hennessy, The Bright Blue Sky

Verb

dud (third-person singular simple present duds, present participle dudding, simple past and past participle dudded)

  1. (Australia) to swindle; to deceive or rip off.

dud meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam

dud in Hindi

डड

dud in Tamil

பொய்ம்மெய், கொல்லைப் பொம்மை

dud in Urdu

جعلی, ناکارہ گولہ, نقلی

dud in Malayalam

flop, failure, let-down
പൊട്ടാത്ത ബോംബ്, കള്ളനാണയം, വലിയ പരാജയം, പൊട്ടാത്ത നഞ്ഞ പടക്കം, പൊട്ടാത്ത നഞ്ഞ ഏറുപടക്കം, നഞ്ഞ കുഴിപ്പടക്കം
faulty, defective, unsound
നടക്കാത്ത പ്രവർത്തിക്കാത്ത, കേടുള്ള, തകരാറുള്ള, വികലം, ഖണ്ഡ, ന്യൂനതയുള്ള
forged, counterfeit, fraudulent
കള്ളനാണയമായ, കള്ളക്കമ്മട്ടത്തിലടിച്ച, കള്ളനോട്ടായ, എടുക്കാത്ത നാണയമായ, കപടം, കൂടകൃത
More languagesFewer languages
dud in Kannada
ಡಡ್
dud in Nepali
टु डड

Examples of dud in a sentence

  • She got a real dud. Well, that's the luck of the draw for you.
  • We'll take 'er duds fer payment — an' I'll 'ave 'er shawl fer a start.
  • "Salt away that chicken feed in your duds, and skip along," says Buck.

All 15 example sentences with dud

Synonyms of dud

Forms of dud

Noun
pluralduds
Adjective
superlativeduddest
Verb
third-person singular presentduds
present participledudding
past participledudded
pastdudded

Origin of dud

From Middle English dudde (“cloak, mantle, kind of cloth; ragged clothing or cloth”), from Old English *dudda (attested only as personal name Dudda, part of modern English Dudley), akin to Old Norse dúði (“swaddling clothes”), Low German dudel. Possibly borrowed from the Old Norse word and related to dýja (“to shake, tremble”).

Words formed from dud

Words that rhyme with dud

15 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about dud

What does dud mean?
Dud means a device or machine that is useless because it does not work properly or has failed to work, such as a bomb, or explosive projectile.
What is dud in Hindi?
Dud in Hindi is डड. See Dud meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is dud?
Dud can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce dud?
Dud is pronounced /dʌd/.
What is the plural of dud?
The plural of dud is duds.

Words near dud in the dictionary

  1. ductworks
  2. Ducuing
  3. Ducuings
  4. ducunu
  5. ducunus
  6. dud
  7. Duda
  8. Duda-Epureni
  9. dudaim
  10. dudaims
  11. Dudash

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dud (page history and authors); dud (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dud (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dud (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dud (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); dud (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); dud (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dud.wav.

Cite this entry: “dud.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dud. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.