scud

Alternative forms

• skud (dialectal sense only)

Etymology

Perhaps from Old Norse skjóta (“to throw, to shoot”).

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ʌd

Adjective

scud (comparative more scud, superlative most scud)

1. (slang, Scotland) Naked.

Verb

scud (third-person singular simple present scuds, present participle scudding, simple past and past participle scudded)

1. (intransitive) To race along swiftly (especially used of clouds).
   • 1799, William Wordsworth,The Two-Part Prelude, Book I:

     When scudding on from snare to snare I plied

     My anxious visitation, hurrying on,

     Still hurrying hurrying onward ...

   • 1807 Walter Scott, The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. 4, "Cadyow Castle":

     From the thick copse the roebucks bound,

     The startled red-deer scuds the plain […]

   • 1844, Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby, or the New Generation, Chapter XVI:

     The wind was high; the vast white clouds scudded over the blue heaven […]

   • 1920, Peter B. Kyne, The Understanding Heart, Chapter II:

     During the preceding afternoon a heavy North Pacific fog had blown in […] Scudding eastward from the ocean, it had crept up and over the redwood-studded crests of the Coast Range mountains, […]

2. (transitive, intransitive, nautical) To run, or be driven, before a high wind with no sails set.
3. (Northumbria) To hit.
4. (Northumbria) To speed.
5. (Northumbria) To skim.

Noun

scud (plural scuds)

1. The act of scudding.
2. Clouds or rain driven by the wind.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick:

     But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel's face […]

3. A gust of wind.
4. (Bristol) A scab on a wound.
5. A small flight of larks, or other birds, less than a flock.
6. Any swimming amphipod.
7. (slang, Scotland) Pornography.
8. (slang, Scotland) Irn-Bru.

   a bottle of Scud

Anagrams

• UCSD, cuds