prod
/pɹɒd/US/pɹɑd/
prod verb: to poke, to push, to touch. Also the clipping of production.
Verb
prod (third-person singular simple present prods, present participle prodding, simple past and past participle prodded)
- To poke, to push, to touch.
- To encourage, to prompt.
- Some of the most beautiful and thus appealing physical theories, including quantum electrodynamics and quantum gravity, have been dogged for decades by infinities that erupt when theorists try to prod their calculations into new domains. Getting rid of these nagging infinities has probably occupied...2012 January, Michael Riordan, “Tackling Infinity”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 30 Apr 2013, page 86
- To prick with a goad.
Noun (1)
prod (plural prods)
- A device (now often electrical) used to goad livestock into moving.
- A prick or stab with such a pointed instrument.
- A poke.
- "It's your turn," she reminded me, giving me a prod on the shoulder.
- A light kind of crossbow; a prodd.
- The 125-pound prod (bow) drives bolt at 250 feet per second.1983, Popular Mechanics
Noun (2)
prod (countable and uncountable, plural prods)
- A production; a created work.
- Check our BBS for the latest prods.
Noun (3) capitalized: Prod
Prod (plural Prods)
- A Protestant, (as termed by Roman Catholics), that is in the context of their religious beliefs, or those who have been born in the Protestant tradition, or sometimes those implied to be Protestant by their political ideology of Irish unionism or Ulster loyalism.
- "I don't want my daughter marrying a dirty Prod," he said.
- 'Could be a lot of things,' McCormack said. 'Still, it narrows things down. Probably a Prod […]'.2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 47
Also used as
prod is also the clipping of production.
prod is also the alternative letter-case form of Prod.
Examples of prod in a sentence
- Prodding gently I realised I had just cracked or broken one or more ribs.
- Since being discovered, Weird Twitter has been poked, prodded, analyzed and made merciless fun of.
- It started a few months ago when this megalogue finally prodded me into belated action.
Synonyms of prod
Forms of prod
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | prods |
| present participle | prodding |
| past participle | prodded |
| past | prodded |
| Noun | |
| plural | prods |
| plural | Prods |
| alternative form | prod |
Origin of prod
Alteration of earlier brod (perhaps through influence of poke; compare prog), from Middle English brodden (“to goad, incite, urge; to sprout”), from brod (“goad, nail; shoot, sprout”), from Old Norse broddr (“shaft, spike, thorn”), from Proto-Germanic *bruzdaz. Cognate with Icelandic broddur, Danish brod. Doublet of brad. Or, from or influenced by sound symbolism.
Shortened from production.
Clipping of Protestant, as pronounced in an accent with flapping.
Words formed from prod
Words that rhyme with prod
Questions about prod
- What does prod mean?
- Prod means to poke, to push, to touch.
- What part of speech is prod?
- Prod can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce prod?
- Prod is pronounced /pɹɒd/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of prod?
- The past tense of prod is prodded.
Words near prod in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: prod (page history and authors); Prod (page history and authors). 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-prod.wav, En-au-Prod.ogg.
Cite this entry: “prod.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prod. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.