thud

From Middle English thudden (“to strike with a weapon”), from Old English þyddan (“to strike, press, thrust”), from Proto-Germanic *þuddijaną, *þiudijaną (“to strike, thrust”), from Proto-Germanic *þūhaną, *þeuhaną (“to press”), from Proto-Indo-European *tūk- (“to beat”). Cognate with Old English þoddettan (“to strike, push, batter”), Old English þȳdan (“to strike, stab, thrust, press”), Old English þēowan (“to press”), Albanian thundër (“a hoof, talon, a shaft", figuratively, "oppression, torment”).

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• IPA^(key): /ˈθʌd/
• Rhymes: -ʌd

thud (plural thuds)

1. The sound of a dull impact.
   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, chapter 3, in Moonfleet (fiction), London: Edward Arnold:

     These were but the thoughts of a second, but the voices were nearer, and I heard a dull thud far up the passage, and knew that a man had jumped down from the churchyard into the hole.

   • 2018 May 26, Daniel Taylor, “Liverpool go through after Mohamed Salah stops Manchester City fightback”, in w:The Guardian‎, London, OCLC 60623878, archived from the original on 27 May 2018:

     Ramos had locked Salah’s right arm and turned him, judo-style, as they lost balance going for the same ball. Television replays hardened the suspicion it was a calculated move on Ramos’s part and, when Salah landed with a hell of a thud, the damage was considerable.

2. A hard, dull impact.
   • 1995 January 26, Mary Ann Swissler, “Fremont Man Recovering from Livermore Pass Attack”, in Bay Area Reporter‎, volume XXV, number 4, San Fransico, page 18:

     Sinclair told the B.A.R. [Bay Area Reporter] he felt the thud of the pistol on his left cheek about a 100 feet from his car, […]

3. (BDSM) A slower, dull impact with a wide surface area.
   • 1992, Jay J. Wiseman, SM 101: A Realistic Introduction‎, second edition, San Francisco: Greenery Press, published 1996, →ISBN, page 181:

     Pillowcase whippings offer the look and feel of a flagellatio scene’s atmosphere, mood, and psychology while involving only very mild amounts of pain. (A pillowcase is almost all “thud” and very little “sting” in the sensations it creates.)

   • 2013, Sophie Morgan, No Ordinary Love Story‎, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 294:

     It still wasn’t what I’d call painful but as he swung his arm and the strands of the flogger hit me together it felt like a solid thud rather than a number of different tails stinging me.

• (BDSM): sting, thump

thud (third-person singular simple present thuds, present participle thudding, simple past and past participle thudded)

1. To make the sound of a dull impact.
   • 1849, George Frederick Ruxton, Life in the Far West (non-fiction), New York: Harper & Brothers, page 183:

     At the same instant two arrows thudded into the carcass of the deer over which he knelt, passing but a few inches from his head.

   • 1874, Mrs George Cupples, “Mrs Glen and the Aberfoyle Orphanage”, in The Poetical Remains of William Glen, Edinburgh: William Paterson, page 47:

     […] while the tears streamed from his eyes, and his tail waved and thudded in perfect time on the sanded floor. But for the said thudding of the tail, I would have stopped, fancying the poor animal's nerves had been set on edge.

• (a dull sound, to make a dull sound): flump, plunk

• clang, clash, crash

• tood

Inherited from Sauraseni Prakrit 𑀤𑀼𑀤𑁆𑀥 (duddha),[1][2] from Sanskrit दुग्ध (dugdhá, “milk”),[1][2] from Proto-Indo-Aryan *dugdʰás, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *dʰugdʰás,[3] from Proto-Indo-European *dʰugʰ-tós,[3] from *dʰewgʰ- (“to be productive”). Compare Hindi दूध (dūdh, “milk”) and Punjabi ਦੁੱਧ (duddha, “milk”).

thud m (nominative plural thuda)

1. milk

• Kalo Finnish Romani: thund

• Yaron Matras (2002), “Historical and linguistic origins”, in Romani: A Linguistic Introduction‎, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 39
• Marcel Courthiade (2009), “o thud, -es- m. -a, -en-”, in Melinda Rézműves, editor, Morri angluni rromane ćhibǎqi evroputni lavustik = Első rromani nyelvű európai szótáram : cigány, magyar, angol, francia, spanyol, német, ukrán, román, horvát, szlovák, görög [My First European-Romani Dictionary: Romani, Hungarian, English, French, Spanish, German, Ukrainian, Romanian, Croatian, Slovak, Greek] (in Hungarian; English), Budapest: Fővárosi Onkormányzat Cigány Ház--Romano Kher, →ISBN, page 364b
• Yūsuke Sumi (2018), “thud, ~a”, in ニューエクスプレスプラス　ロマ（ジプシー）語 [New Express Plus Romani (Gypsy)] (in Japanese), Tokyo: Hakusuisha, published 2021, →ISBN, OCLC 1267332830, page 156

• (North Wales) IPA^(key): /θɨːd/
• (South Wales) IPA^(key): /θiːd/

thud

1. Aspirate mutation of tud.