cud

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   food brought back from a ruminant's stomach to the mouth and chewed again

   The cattle lay in the shade and calmly chewed the cud.

2. 2
   verb

   To bring back into the mouth and chew a second time.

   Here were two ladies nearly fifty years old, throwing back their heads to sing love songs, nursery songs, hymns, God Save the Queen, Rule Britannia—songs that spilled over the drawing-room as easily as Small's cow songs spilled over the yard, only Small's songs were new, fresh grass snatched as the cow snatched pasture grass. The ladies’ songs were rechews—cudded fodder.

From Middle English code, cudde, coude, quede, quide, from Old English cudu, cwidu, from Proto-West Germanic *kwidu, from Proto-Germanic *kweduz (“resin”). Doublet of quid (“material for chewing”). Cognate with German Kitt and Sanskrit जतु (jatu, “lac, gum”).

Topics