duds
Americanplural noun
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clothes, especially a suit of clothes.
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belongings in general.
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Later that decade it could have paid for the polyester duds John Travolta sported in “Saturday Night Fever.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 3, 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 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
There were also duds - far too many - but Gerrard was bullet proof.
From BBC • Oct. 12, 2025
His sharp duds weren’t the only thing that set Johnny Cakes apart from the other fishermen at the docks.
From Full of Beans by Jennifer L. Holm
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.
