Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. fake, false, counterfeit.

1897		Mirror of Life 3 Mar. 3/1: [T]hese ‘dud’ (counterfeit) notes are so apparently genuine that their baseness was only discovered by accident.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 128: Those two getabits [...] will get up a dud or barney fight right under your nose.
1918		‘Sapper’ Human Touch 188: You swabs of the gutter, you give me a dud fiver amongst my winnings.
1921		‘Dornford Yates’ Berry and Co 38: Only the dud stuff’s left.
1930		K.S. Prichard Haxby’s Circus 236: A bloody fake! A dud show.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 33: A fixer of dud passports.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 98: Here I come back with a cool quarter of a million in dud beehives.
1971		Wodehouse Much Obliged, Jeeves 54: He would probably give you a dud cheque.
1985		J. Sullivan ‘To Hull and Back’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] It was Boycie’s money weren’t it? It was fake, dud, counterfeit.
1992		in R. Graef Living Dangerously 167: We sold something dud (phoney drugs).
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 101: This association, no matter how short and tenuous, cost Uncle Ern a motza from all the dud oil fed him by Big Fat Jim.
2000		Observer Screen 19 Mar. 3: He was in the neighbouring county’s jail for passing dud cheques.

2. second-rate, unsuccessful; inferior.

1897		Mirror of Life 3 Mar. 3/1: Joe Rowe [...] was the other night beset by the wild boys of the City Road, who were after Joe's red jerry and tackle, but Joe had left the red ’un at home and the boys only a captured a ‘dud’ watch.
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Odd or Even?’ Sporting Times 26 Sept. 1/3: Young Ike left out the dud stuff amongst those that came along.
1918		C.J. Dennis ‘Digger Smith’ in Chisholm (1951) 94: Give us a light. I can’t get none from Flood, / An’ mine is dud.
1918		L.N. Smith Lingo of No Man’s Land 30: DUD Bad; the weather may be ‘dud,’ or a shell may be ‘dud,’ or anything else that does not suit Tommy.
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 150: I’ve got to go tomorrow and spend three weeks with some absolutely dud – I will go further – some positively scaly friends of my Aunt Vera.
1932		M. Marshall Travels of Tramp-Royal 179: Anyway, it’s a dud sort of a place.
c.1940–5		‘Myles na gCopaleen’ Best of Myles (1968) 241: The writing crowd, it is well known, are only a parcel of dud czechs and bohemian gulls.
1957		‘Neville Shute’ On the Beach 270: I’d like to catch one fish [...] Even if it’s such a dud one that we put it back.
1963		G. Lambert Inside Daisy Clover (1966) 162: I had a book of dud matches, not one of them would strike.
1979		S. King Dead Zone (1980) 381: His knees popped like dud firecrackers.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 42: So one dud writer can usually spot another.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 121: And, mainly because of his dud looks, Telford managed to snare him for £168 which, even way back then, was chaff money for a genuine thoroughbred.
1999		Observer 4 July 23: A couple of dud movies and LA might start to seem less accommodating.
2000		M. Amis Experience 33: One of God’s dud jokes.
2004		R.G. Barrett Rosa Marie’s Baby (2013) [ebook] The huge meal and dud movie had flattened him.

3. broken.

1917		Blackwood’s Mag. May 803/2: It was soon afterwards that our engine went dud. Instead of a rhythmic and continuous hum there was at regular intervals a break.
1974		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 6: It was only a month since they’d removed the last lot of plaster from my dud ankle.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 35: You strike a luggage trolley with a dud wheel.
2005		P. Temple Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] Hopgood puts us together in a dud car, claims he can’t hear the radio.

4. unfair.

1989

R.G. Barrett Boys from Binjiwunyawunya 159: It was a dud pinch, there was no two ways about it, and Norton was entitled to blow up.

5. (Aus.) as sense 1, but specific to sexual inadequates.