Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also crud, crudding) useless, no good, second-rate.

c.1930		(con. late 19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 206: You give them, if that miracle happens, some of these crud tie-pins, tie-clasps, cufflinks.
1939		W. Winchell On Broadway 29 Jan. [synd. col.] Columbia Workshop’s playlet [...] dialog was cruddy enough for the Bayes Theater.
1953		W. Eyster Far from the Customary Skies 56: Kisses get like beans, and hooking tootsies together winds up just plain cruddy.
1957		(con. 1944) A. Myrer Big War 299: Over a barrel. Over a lousy crudding barrel.
1959		‘Don Elliott’ Gang Girl (2011) 20: What kind of cruddy name is that?
1960		G. Swarthout Where the Boys Are 31: It is really reprehensible and cruddy not to have a goal.
1971		T. Thackrey Thief 288: But damn if I didn’t let a cruddy little penny-ante safe-cracker named Shorty, into ‘just one more’ score.
1980		W.C. Anderson Bat-21 136: I’ve got a date with a nice old duck who’s a victim of your cruddy war.
1994		J. Wambaugh Finnegan’s Week 314: This is a cruddy age, isn’t it?
2005		starpulse.com 4 Nov. 🌐 Any so called man that would walk out on a woman [...] eight months pregnant with his child is cruddy in my book.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 95: The jobsworth in the car park takes one look at the cruddy Astra and he’s on his way over.
2010		L. Berney Gutshot Straight [ebook] [H]eld hostage in a cruddy restaurant and charged way too much for a cruddy meal.

2. dirty, unpleasant, unsavoury.

1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 31: A two-way street of silk-monogram intrigue that could lead from the cruddiest gin mill to the smartest house in Sutton Place.
1958		(con. 1950) E. Frankel Band of Brothers 4: At least he don’t act like he’s shot in the ass with the Corps [...] Might not volunteer us for every damn’ cruddy detail.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 27: I remember how it worried me in that cruddy hotel room when the hotel’s neon sign [...] would flash on her face.
1974		R. Carter Sixteenth Round (1991) 161: A small, once-white, cruddy porcelain sink.
1983		S. King Christine 54: You ain’t parking your cruddy hotrod in front of my house.
1995		P. Bourjois In Search of Respect 38: They black. And they cruddy. And they smell black.
2009		J. Joso Soothing Music for Stray Cats 48: It was a shame about the cruddy buildings.
2016		M. Carey ‘Bad News’ 118: [H]e now was frequently spotted [...] wearing T-shirts, baggy sweat pants, and cruddy sneakers that had no shoelaces.
2020		G. Krauze What They Was 115: Living in some cruddy block [ibid.] 297: Everybody’s just doing the same cruddy shit.