Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) any filthy and disgusting matter.

1943		‘Whitman College Sl.’ in AS XVIII:2 Apr. 153/2: crud. Food, usually unpalatable.
1960		E. De Roo Big Rumble 102: Where can you get ready-made in there, like this crud?
1977		C. McFadden Serial 17: The ankle-deep accumulation of sidewalk crud on picturesque Broadway.
1983		N. Proffitt Gardens of Stone (1985) 207: He’s [...] putting black crud on his face.
1999		(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.
2001		S. King Dreamcatcher 168: Do you see that crud on the shower curtain?
2020		D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 24: Smith scraped gravy and potato crud off the last of the plates.

(b) curds.

1819		‘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!
1861		(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.
1877		‘Sally Gray’ in Laughing Songster 124: I ca’d to sup cruds wi’ Dick Miller.
1989		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.

c.1940		‘The Castration of the Strawberry Roan’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 92: He’s got epizootic, the glanders, and crud.
1947		‘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.
1958		(con. 1950) E. Frankel Band of Brothers 31: Haven’t checked since we lost that swabbie with the crud.
1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 56: Why didntya biter back? She’d get the crud.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 160: Rock causes cancer, acne, and the creeping crud.
1999		Eble Campus Sl. Apr.
2003		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.

1953		L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 240: Crapped nine times tonight. Musta got the crud.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 105: Crud’s meanings [...] are uniformly noxious, including dried semen, diarrhea.
2000		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.

1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1964		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.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak 45: Crud – originally referred to dried semen which clings to the body or clothing.

(f) (US) any venereal disease.

1951		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.
1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1989		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.

1958		R. Frede Entry E (1961) 105: He scared the crud out of me the way he looked.
1995–2003		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.
1998		St Petersburg Times 31 Mar. 🌐 Say this for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays: They would kick the crud out of the Seattle Pilots.

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

[1930		S.J. Perelman in Marschall That Old Gang o’ Mine [title] How Love Came to Dudley Crud].
1942		W. Winchell On Broadway 15 May [synd. col.] A small-timer, who columned a crud about winning the war with poetry.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 301: I ought to kick your head in, you double-crossing crud.
1952		Kerouac letter 8 Oct. in Charters I (1995) 378: 15 years of my life wasted among the cruds of New York.
1957		M. Shulman Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1959) 97: Civilians [...] Pudgy palmed, shifty-eyed., grey flannel crud.
1963		in T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 16: Stupid, greasy cruds.
1967		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.
1975		D. Nobbs Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976) 62: One of the cruds told me.
1976		S.J. Perelman letter 18 Oct. in Crowther Don’t Tread on Me (1987) 318: To what purpose all this crud, anyway?
1983		N. Heard House of Slammers 216: Dear Crud, I’m informing you that your wife is a crud, too.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 81: A guy void of defects mustered no challenge. Send in the cruds.
2006		F.X. Toole Pound for Pound 145: One day [...] he must die like the crud he was.
2023		F. Bill Back to the Dirt 81: Two pieces of malformed crud sat on a broke-down sofa [...] eyes like cue balls sunk back into their skulls, their mouths trapped somewhere between an inhale and a yawn.

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

1940		‘C.C.C. Sl.’ AS VX:2 212: A ‘crud’ is a fellow who is slovenly in his personal appearance and with his possessions.
1966		B. Reckord Skyvers I ii: You four-kind son of a bitch. You crud.
1974		(con. 1945) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 297: Old crud’s the biggest opium smoker on the island.
1999		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.