spud

A potato.informal

• We were peeling spuds on afternoon detail back of the lodge at summer camp — Billy Dean and I, and two or three more — and as usual arguing about whether the camp work ought to be done that way or not[…]
• You can praise God by peeling a spud if you peel it to perfection. Don't compromise. Compromise is a language of the devil. Run in God's name, and let the world stand back and in wonder.

A hole in a sock.informal

• He leans over to one side to get the light, as he darns a hole in the heel of a sock. He is getting pretty smart at it now, and no longer makes spuds in the sock to chafe his heels.
• He was getting tall too, and his trousers were short even though his turn-ups had been turned down, and he'd got a spud in his socks where his shoe rubbed where he trod over trying to walk bow-legged to look like a cowboy.

A type of short nut (fastener) threaded on both ends.

• With the tank resting upside down on an old towel or blanket, use a spud wrench or a large pair of channel-type pliers to loosen the spud nut.
• For removing or tightening radiator spud nut.

Anything short and thick.obsolete

• As I turned out of the wood, I heard the shrill tone of infant wailing; and as I came towards the cottage, I saw a fine flaxen-headed urchin, some six or seven years old, stamping and beating himself with his clenched little spuds of fists,

A piece of dough boiled in fat.USdialectalobsolete

A testicle.plural-normallyslang

A dagger.obsolete

A digging fork with three broad prongs.

A tool, similar to a spade, used for digging out weeds etc.

• 1728, Jonathan Swift, A Pastoral Dialogue, 1910, William Browning (editor), The Poems of Jonathan Swift, Volume 2, 2004, Gutenberg eBook #13621, My love to Sheelah is more firmly fixt, / Than strongest weeds that grow these stones betwixt:
• 1885, Richard Jefferies, After London: or Wild England, 2004 [1905], Gutenberg eBook #13944, Deprived of motion by the blow of the club, it can, on the other hand, be picked up without trouble and without the aid of a dog, and if not dead i

A barking spud; a long-handled tool for removing bark from logs.

To dig up weeds with a spud.transitive

• There was thistle-spudding all over the Marsh; an army of thistles, an army of spudders.

To begin drilling an oil well; to drill by moving the drill bit and shaft up and down, or by raising and dropping a bit.transitive

• When a well is spudded, the drilling assembly is loosely tied to the guide wires with 1/2″ manila rope.

To remove the roofing aggregate and most of the bituminous top coating by scraping and chipping.transitive

To set up a recreational vehicle (RV) at a campsite, typically by leveling the RV and connecting it to electric, water, or sewer hookups.transitive

A game for three or more players, involving the gradual elimination of players by throwing and catching a ball.