Green’s Dictionary of Slang

crud n.

[Scot. crud, thickened or coagulated milk; note US regional crud, curdled milk; note HDAS suggests all US uses are backform. f. cruddy adj.]

1. of foul substances, bodily fluids etc.

(a) any filthy and disgusting matter.

[US] ‘Whitman College Sl.’ in AS XVIII:2 Apr. 153/2: crud. Food, usually unpalatable.
[US]E. De Roo Big Rumble 102: Where can you get ready-made in there, like this crud?
[US]C. McFadden Serial 17: The ankle-deep accumulation of sidewalk crud on picturesque Broadway.
[US]N. Proffitt Gardens of Stone (1985) 207: He’s [...] putting black crud on his face.
[UK](con. 1959) C. Logue Prince Charming 249: The top of the water was covered with greyish crud and I couldn’t bring myself to put even a toe in.
[US]S. King Dreamcatcher 168: Do you see that crud on the shower curtain?
[Aus]D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 24: Smith scraped gravy and potato crud off the last of the plates.

(b) curds.

[UK]‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 20: LONG SANDY [...] tipp’d him a punch in / The critical place, where he cupboards his luncheon, / Which knocked all the rich Curacao into cruds, / And doubled him up, like a bag of old duds!
[UK](con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 193/1: A woman who had sold ‘cruds’ – as the street-people usually call it – for eighteen years gave me the following account.
[Scot] ‘Sally Gray’ in Laughing Songster 124: I ca’d to sup cruds wi’ Dick Miller.
[US]H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 105: Crud is a variant of the coagulated, milky curd.

(c) (orig. US milit.) any unidentified disease; often as creeping crud, crawling crud.

[US] ‘The Castration of the Strawberry Roan’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 92: He’s got epizootic, the glanders, and crud.
[US] ‘Imaginary Diseases’ in AS XXII:4 Apr. 304/2: crud (the). This word (derived from the Welsh cryd, meaning fever or plague), is used more commonly than any other single Army or Navy term for imaginary disease. It has no actual definition, being used in a general sense. If a person is unaware of the exact nature of a buddy’s complaint, it is always safe to ask him how his case of the crud is coming along. The term has several variants: the Japanese Crud, the Oriental Crud, the Creeping Crud, etc.
[US](con. 1950) E. Frankel Band of Brothers 31: Haven’t checked since we lost that swabbie with the crud.
[US]H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 56: Why didntya biter back? She’d get the crud.
[US]J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 160: Rock causes cancer, acne, and the creeping crud.
[US]Eble Campus Sl. Apr.
[US]Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 2: crud – sickness, usually with flu-like symptoms: John couldn’t come to class because he has the crud.

(d) (orig. US milit.) diarrhoea.

[US]L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 240: Crapped nine times tonight. Musta got the crud.
[US]H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 105: Crud’s meanings [...] are uniformly noxious, including dried semen, diarrhea.
[UK]M. Manning Get Your Cock Out 61: Crud stained knickers stiff with irregular menstruation and diarrhoea.

(e) dried semen, whether on the body, clothes or bedlinen.

[US]Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
[US]R. Abrahams Deep Down In The Jungle 265: Crut – Variant of crud, originally, dried semen which sticks to clothes, body, etc., after emission, but more generally referring to anything base.
[US]B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
[UK]J. Morton Lowspeak 45: Crud – originally referred to dried semen which clings to the body or clothing.

(f) (US) any venereal disease.

[US]C. Willingham ‘Excitement in Ergo’ in Gates of Hell (1966) 173: It was with horror that he later discovered he had gotten a case of a social disease, the creeping crud.
[US]Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
[US]H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 105: Crud’s meanings, however, [...] are uniformly noxious, including dried semen, diarrhea; unpalatable food; fungus, skin and intestinal infections; and various other loathsome complaints, both real (especially venereal) and imaginary, often referred to as the creeping crud.

(g) daylights, guts, stuffing, e.g. kick the crud out of.

[UK]R. Frede Entry E (1961) 105: He scared the crud out of me the way he looked.
D. Prince ‘Rev. of Mummies Alive!’ at Daily-Reviews.com 🌐 Unlike those obnoxious Power Rangers who encouraged every six-year-old to kick the crud out of one another.
[US]St Petersburg Times 31 Mar. 🌐 Say this for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays: They would kick the crud out of the Seattle Pilots.

2. of people.

(a) anything or anyone worthless or repulsive; also as a generic collective term.

[[US]S.J. Perelman in Marschall That Old Gang o’ Mine [title] How Love Came to Dudley Crud].
[US]W. Winchell On Broadway 15 May [synd. col.] A small-timer, who columned a crud about winning the war with poetry.
[US]B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 301: I ought to kick your head in, you double-crossing crud.
[US]Kerouac letter 8 Oct. in Charters I (1995) 378: 15 years of my life wasted among the cruds of New York.
[US]M. Shulman Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1959) 97: Civilians [...] Pudgy palmed, shifty-eyed., grey flannel crud.
[US] in T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 16: Stupid, greasy cruds.
[US]M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 18: And these crud, and all the crud like them, will get scraped up in the street and shoved into the sewers.
[UK]D. Nobbs Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976) 62: One of the cruds told me.
[US]S.J. Perelman letter 18 Oct. in Crowther Don’t Tread on Me (1987) 318: To what purpose all this crud, anyway?
[US]N. Heard House of Slammers 216: Dear Crud, I’m informing you that your wife is a crud, too.
[US]B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 81: A guy void of defects mustered no challenge. Send in the cruds.
[US]F.X. Toole Pound for Pound 145: One day [...] he must die like the crud he was.

(b) (orig. US milit.) a slovenly, habitually dirty person.

[US] ‘C.C.C. Sl.’ AS VX:2 212: A ‘crud’ is a fellow who is slovenly in his personal appearance and with his possessions.
[UK]B. Reckord Skyvers I ii: You four-kind son of a bitch. You crud.
[US](con. 1945) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 297: Old crud’s the biggest opium smoker on the island.
[US]S. Grafton O is for Outlaw (2000) 269: Meanwhile, Bobbi ran a background check on this crud, who’s got a criminal history as long as your arm.

3. (US) nonsense, rubbish.

[US]J.H. Burns Lucifer with a Book 81: The consecrated profession! Consecrated to dust, ashes, and crud!
[US]Billie Holiday Lady Sings the Blues (1975) 26: This was all a lot of crud.
[US]W. Murray Sweet Ride 174: The papers come out with all this crud about the kid being found on the road, raped and beaten up.
[US]B. Malamud Tenants (1972) 66: I want to show you how full of crud you are.
[US]Playboy 2/84 n.p.: Theodore Sturgeon once said that 90 percent of everything is crud [R].
[US]B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 74: What other route was there [...] but to squander such a silly gift of generosity on crud that would help dissolve his nightly ennui?
[UK]K. Sampson Powder 101: Look like an off-duty milkman whatever designer crud you wear.
Grizzle ‘Mandem Salute’ 🎵 Why you rapping all this crud.
[UK]Digga D. ‘Stuck in the Mud’ 🎵 I talk a lot of crud (Crud) / I’ve drawn a lot of blood (Blood).

4. attrib. use of sense 3.

[US](con. 1944) A. Myrer Big War 399: Our new lord and master has just stuck us with another crud detail.

5. (UK drugs) marijuana.

Urban Dict. 18 Dec. 🌐 Crud Some good marijuana; also referred to as kush.
[UK]G. Krauze What They Was 71: He’s always on crud, but bare d-low with it like his girl and his family would never guess.

In derivatives

crudzoid (n.) [-zoid sfx]

(US) a repellent, disgusting person.

L. Hindle Dragon Fall 23: You hear, you little crudzoid! Death! Death! Death for you .

In compounds

crud bag (n.) [? SE curd bag, used in cheesemaking or rare 18C use to mean a cow’s fourth stomach aka rennet bag]

the stomach.

[UK]Pierce Egan’s Life in London 17 Apr. 93/3: Tom Dawson, when stripped, looked too much à la Falstaff. A cove, who stood by, said, ‘D’ye hear, Tom, you've too much beef in your crud bag’.
crudball

see separate entries.

crudhead (n.) [-head sfx (1)]

a fool, an unpleasant person.

P. Edmondson Little Revolution 11: The miserable little crudhead, Martin thought when he ould think again.
R. Vance They Made Me a Leatherneck (2007) 100: Anyone who committed this unpardonable crime had to walk around the range, announcing to all he met, ‘I am a crudhead, I called my rifle a gun’.
B.J. Friedman Stern (2001) 138: He’s a crudhead. I could steal his ass off.
N. Silver Fat Men in Skirts 42: The crudhead’s afraid to come in.
[US]Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 3: crudhead – a good-for-nothing person.
‘Joe Bob Briggs’ ‘Rev. of I Spit On Your Grave’ at JoeBobBriggs.com 🌐 All turn in great performances, but especially Tabor as the finest crudhead slimeball woman-hater ever portrayed.
crud-sucking (adj.) (also crud-eating)

(US) a general term of abuse, revolting, disgusting etc.

[US](con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 222: Go on and do it, you crud-eatin cockroach.
[US](con. 1943) A. Myrer Big War 159: You remember what you are: brig-rats! – and crud-eating brig-rats besides.
[US]M. Braly It’s Cold Out There (2005) 190: Stop shoving, you crud-sucking slobs!
crud-work (n.)

(US) any menial, unpleasant or tedious work.

on Golden Age of TV (1987) [ABC-TV] Why does a guy like you give up pool playing and do crud work? [HDAS].
M. Webster at gvsu.edu 🌐 College students who pledge fraternities or sororities should be quite familiar with initiation rituals. There is a separation (hazing), transition (pledges do the crud work), and finally incorporation, or full membership in the society.

In phrases

crud up (v.)

(orig. US) to render disgusting, filthy; thus to spoil.

[US] in T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 75: More horse shit that society [...] wants to crud themselves up with.
S. Ross Hang-Up 115: ‘Wouldn’t you like shoes with that dress?’...‘No. That’d crud everything up.’ [HDAS].
shooters.com 🌐 Thunderbolts are pretty dirty, and can crud things up pretty fast. Have you tried any other brand? I recommend a box of CCI MiniMags for a reliability check.