noun
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a person or thing that proves ineffectual or a failure
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a shell, etc, that fails to explode
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old-fashioned (plural) clothes or other personal belongings
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dud
1815–25; special use of dud, singular of duds
Explanation
Something that doesn't work the way it's supposed to is a dud. A bomb or firework that doesn't explode is one kind of dud. A bad blind date is another kind. When a bomb fails to explode, it's a dud. A long-planned surprise party that fails miserably when the guest of honor doesn't show up is another kind of dud. You can also refer to a person as a dud, if they're an utter failure or a complete flop: "The lead actor was a total dud. He couldn't really sing or dance and he seemed nervous." In the 1800s, a dud was "a person in ragged clothing," from dudde, "cloak or mantle."
Vocabulary lists containing dud
Back-Words: Palindromes
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Essential Three-Letter Words, Part 3
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Scrabble: Palindrome Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
For those of us who remember the bicentennial, the semiquincentennial is a complete and utter dud.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
But no, we can confidently report that the Great American State Fair is a big ol’ dud.
From Slate ● Jul. 1, 2026
It’s the first day of SpaceX trading, and Wall Street has high hopes it’ll provide a lot more excitement than that dud of a World Cup opener.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 12, 2026
With the hotly anticipated SpaceX offering imminent, it’s apt that a rare dud in Elon Musk’s sprawling business empire is called The Boring Company.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 3, 2026
You’re handsome! devil Thank you very much. dud: The universe!
From "Words Like Loaded Pistols" by Sam Leith
One of the most public examples of rule-breaking was on display this year in a photo shoot for Interview magazine, where four junior bankers modeled designer duds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
Lucasfilm was hit-and-miss under Kennedy—for every Star Wars success story like The Force Awakens, there were duds like Solo, a spinoff that focuses on original trilogy icon Han Solo.
From Barron's ● Jan. 16, 2026
The Brisbane Courier Mail claimed England are "not even trying anymore", the Advertiser from Adelaide labelled the tourists "rub a dub duds" and Sydney's Daily Telegraph carried the headline "Surfed and Turfed".
From BBC ● Dec. 13, 2025
The United States has a sophisticated testing system that doesn’t require setting off explosions, and when it comes to deterrence, nobody in the world assumes that America’s arsenal is full of duds.
From Salon ● Nov. 2, 2025
But when he saw that Mareth looked nervous, too, he stuck the duds in his pocket.
From "Gregor the Overlander" by Suzanne Collins
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
