Crude

How to spell crude

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce crude

What does crude mean?

1. adjectiveIn a rough or unrefined state, or lacking subtlety, polish, or good taste.
2. nounUnrefined petroleum extracted from the ground before processing.

Crude in a sentence

• adjective

  The early prototype was a crude wooden model held together with tape.

• noun

  The refinery processes thousands of barrels of crude every day.

• adjective

  His crude remark at the dinner table embarrassed the whole family.

• noun

  A sudden drop in the price of crude rattled the energy markets.

Where does crude come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Crude entered English in the late 1300s from the Latin word crudus, which literally meant 'raw', 'bleeding', or 'unripe', the kind of word you would use for uncooked meat or fruit that had not yet matured. That Latin adjective grew from the root cruor, meaning 'blood' or 'gore', so at its heart the word carries the idea of something still bloody and unprocessed. Early English use described food and materials in their raw, untreated state, and from there the sense broadened to anything unrefined, whether a rough manner, a vulgar joke, or an unprocessed natural resource. By the nineteenth century 'crude' had attached itself firmly to petroleum drawn from the ground before refining, giving us the modern phrase 'crude oil'. The same cruor root sits behind 'cruel', a useful reminder that the spelling keeps a plain -ude ending with no hidden letters to trip over.

How the word is built

• crud- (from Latin crudus: raw, unripe)
• -e