Prod

How to spell prod

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce prod

What does prod mean?

1. verbTo poke or jab something, or to urge a reluctant person into action.
2. nounA poke or jab, or a pointed instrument used for poking.

Prod in a sentence

• verb

  The farmer used a stick to prod the cattle through the gate.

• noun

  He gave the sleeping dog a sharp prod to wake it.

• verb

  She had to prod her teenage son out of bed every morning.

• noun

  The team needed a prod from the manager before they finished the report.

Where does prod come from?

Language of origin: Unknown

The origin of prod is genuinely uncertain, which is partly why it has such a short, blunt look on the page. It surfaced in English in the late 1500s, first as a verb meaning to poke or jab with something pointed, and the leading theory is that it began as an imitative or expressive coinage, a word shaped to sound like the sharp, sudden action it describes. Some scholars have linked it loosely to the older word 'brod' or 'brad', a small spike or goad, and to 'prog', a dialect verb meaning to poke about, but no single clear ancestor can be proved. From the literal sense of physically poking, the figurative meaning of urging a reluctant person into action grew up alongside it and is now just as common. Because the word is so compact, the only real spelling point is the single final 'd' and the short, open vowel.

How the word is built

• prod (single root; no prefix or suffix)