bud

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A small swelling on a plant that grows into a leaf or flower

   After the long winter, the trees finally began to produce buds.

2. 2
   verb

   To produce buds; to start to grow

   The roses are just starting to bud.

3. 3
   noun

   Something that is just beginning to develop

   We nipped the problem in the bud before it could spread.

From Middle English budde, bodde (“bud, seed pod”), from Old English *budde, from Proto-West Germanic *buʀdā, from Proto-Germanic *buzdǭ (compare archaic German Butte (“rosehip”), Swedish dialect bodd (“head”)), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew-, *bu- (“to swell”). Compare also German Low German Butte, Butt (“bud”), Dutch bot (“bud”), regional German Butz, Butzen (“seed pod; apple core”), German Low German Haagbutt ("rosehip"; Haagbudden (“rosehips”, plural)).

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