Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. fake, false, counterfeit.

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.

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.