Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. of a person, a failure, an incompetent, a weakling, a bore.

1825		Jamieson Etym. Dict. Scot. Lang. (Supplement) n.p.: Applied to a thowless [spiritless] fellow . . . ‘He’s a soft dud’ .
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 195: It’s all dam fine for your young military duds to come a-bettin’ on the nod an’ playin’ up the ‘pure boy’.
1917		A.G. Empey Over the Top 118: You blankety-blank dud, I have been trying to raise you for fifteen minutes. What’s the matter, are you asleep?
1928		V. Palmer Passage 134: ‘I’m a real dud as a housekeeper,’ she confessed.
1933		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Sept. 40/4: ‘Supposin’ that ape of yours meets someone better than himself first crack out of the box and turns out to be a dud?’.
1936		D. Footman Pig and Pepper (1990) 110: I had had a presentiment that my immediate neighbours would be duds from the point of view of company, and duds they were.
1949		H. Miller Sexus (1969) 120: He wasn’t an artist, to be sure, but then he wasn’t a dud either.
1969		N. Spinrad Bug Jack Barron 17: A [...] dud like that Johnson.
1977		J. Langone Life at the Bottom 24: Someone in front of me mutters, ‘Pencil, you dud’.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 45: This little detour down Dud Avenue.
1999		Indep. Rev. 29 June 4: Stud or dud? The top 10 things women look for in men.
2000		M. Amis Experience 246: Members of both sexes were ranked as one of the following: a dud, a possible, a smasher.

2. anything that lit. or fig. ‘does not work’.

1901		Marvel XV:388 Apr. 1: I hope this will not prove a dud!
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘The Sweet Old Names’ Sporting Times 4 Apr. 1/3: I have told fairy stories to Mary, / And to Jane I’ve oft whispered a wheeze; / But they’re chestnuts to Maisie, back numbers to Daisy, / And the veriest ‘duds’ to Louise.
1918		Aussie (France) 4 Apr. 4/1: [of shells] He gave in – till a couple of duds came over, and then he tried to get out again, chirping: ‘Lubbly li’le duds! Lemme catch ’em!’.
1922		‘Sapper’ Black Gang 348: Just this one final coup, old girl [...] If it’s a dud, we’ll dissolve ourselves.
1932		L.E. Lawes Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing 221: I told a story about the necessity for mutual understanding. It was a dud, went flat – no laughs.
1946		S. Jackson Indiscreet Guide to Soho 52: He publishes four a month out of thousands of duds.
1959		D. Niland Big Smoke 42: He might have had no heart, no stamina, no nothing. He might have turned out a dud.
1968–70		Current Sl. III–IV (Cumulation Issue).
1971		B. Malamud Tenants (1972) 18: If I don’t write this novel exactly as I should – if, God forbid, I were to force or fake it, then it’s a dud.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 78: I have heard it said of a jockey who rode a couple of ‘duds’.
1997		D. Farson Never a Normal Man 311: She had cut the coffee-stall scene and another dud to save time.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Culture 27 Feb. 3: A perfect dud.
2004		R.G. Barrett Rosa Marie’s Baby (2013) [ebook] He sold my sister-in-law a paitning for twenty-five grand that turned out to be a dud.

3. of a thing or event, a failure, a disappointment, a ‘flop’.

1905		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Scenic’ Sporting Times 11 Feb. 1/4: ‘Though the piece may be a dud, the leading lady scored all right,’ / Said a gentleman who’d had three lines to spout.
1918		‘Sapper’ Human Touch 124: I’m thinking we’ve struck a dud in this house.
1933		C.G. Booth ‘Stag Party’ in Penzler Pulp Fiction (2006) 113: If i pull a dud i lose my badge.
1946		J. Evans Halo in Blood (1988) 213: They sat there and blinked at me. My bombshell was a dud.
2001		Source Aug. 38: That Poli Sci album was a dud.
2016		M. Carey ‘Bad News’ 113: [T]he team turned out to be a dud, finishing out of the playoffs in sixth place [in the ABA Championship].