Showing results for "duds"

• plural of dud.

duds

American  

[duhdz] / dʌdz /

plural noun

Informal.

1. clothes, especially a suit of clothes.

2. belongings in general.

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Etymology

Origin of duds

1275–1325; Middle English dudde; perhaps akin to Low German dudel coarse sackcloth

Explanation

Your duds are your clothes. Your grandmother might hand you a hundred dollar bill at the mall and say, "Go buy yourself some new duds." The noun duds is an informal, slang term for "clothing." You can pack your duds in a suitcase before a vacation or arrange your duds by color in your closet. Though experts aren't sure where the word duds came from originally, they know that it was dudde in the 1300s, which meant "cloak or mantle," and later came to be duddes and to mean "ragged clothing."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

duds

Comic actors have a sense of timing and an ability to ad-lib when the teleprompter spits out duds, as John Mulaney proved with his inspired rant about masculinity when he presented.

From Salon ● Sep. 15, 2026

Costume designer Maya Edmond dresses Big Ant thematically: white tees when he’s trying to be good, black duds when his demons are winning and comic book-y jailbird stripes during his pivotal teenage arrest.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026

Amazon’s Fire smartphone and Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating systems were both duds.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 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

But when he saw that Mareth looked nervous, too, he stuck the duds in his pocket.

From "Gregor the Overlander" by Suzanne Collins

Related Words

• frock
• garb
• sportswear