Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Being in an unrefined or natural state.
  • adjective Lacking tact or taste; blunt or offensive.
  • adjective Lacking in sophistication or subtlety; simplistic.
  • adjective Not carefully or skillfully made; rough.
  • adjective Undisguised or unadorned; plain.
  • adjective Statistics In an unanalyzed form; not adjusted to allow for related circumstances or data.
  • adjective Archaic Unripe or immature.
  • noun A substance, especially petroleum, in its unrefined state.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Being in a raw or unprepared state; not fitted for use by cooking, manufacture, or the like; not altered, refined, or prepared by any artificial process; not wrought: as, crude vegetables; the crude materials of the earth; crude salt; crude ore.
  • Hence 3. Unrefined; unpolished; coarse; rough; gross: as, crude manners or speech; a crude feast.
  • Not worked into the proper form; lacking finish, polish, proper arrangement, or completeness; hence, exhibiting lack of knowledge or skill; imperfect: said of things: as, a crude painting; a crude theory; a crude attempt.
  • Characterized by lack of sufficient knowledge or skill; unable to produce what is finished, polished, or complete: said of persons.
  • Synonyms Raw. Crude. See raw.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective In its natural state; not cooked or prepared by fire or heat; undressed; not altered, refined, or prepared for use by any artificial process; raw.
  • adjective Unripe; not mature or perfect; immature.
  • adjective Not reduced to order or form; unfinished; not arranged or prepared; ill-considered; immature.
  • adjective Undigested; unconcocted; not brought into a form to give nourishment.
  • adjective Having, or displaying, superficial and undigested knowledge; without culture or profundity.
  • adjective (Paint.) Harsh and offensive, as a color; tawdry or in bad taste, as a combination of colors, or any design or work of art.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Being in a natural state.
  • adjective Characterized by simplicity, especially something not carefully or expertly made.
  • adjective Lacking concealing elements.
  • adjective Lacking tact or taste.
  • adjective statistics Being in an unanalyzed form.
  • adjective archaic Immature or unripe.
  • noun Any substance in its natural state.
  • noun Crude oil.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective not carefully or expertly made
  • adjective belonging to an early stage of technical development; characterized by simplicity and (often) crudeness
  • adjective conspicuously and tastelessly indecent
  • adjective not refined or processed
  • adjective devoid of any qualifications or disguise or adornment
  • adjective not processed or subjected to analysis
  • noun a dark oil consisting mainly of hydrocarbons

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Latin crūdus; see kreuə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English crude, from Latin crūdus ("raw, bloody, uncooked, undigested, crude"), from Proto-Indo-European *krewa- (“raw meat, fresh blood”). Cognate with Old English hrēaw ("raw, uncooked"). More at raw.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word crude.

Examples

  • Normally, crude is shipped to Far East in 50 days but when the Med Stream is completed it would take 19 days to transport crude from the Red Sea.

    16 « September « 2008 « Niqnaq 2008

  • Normally, crude is shipped to Far East in 50 days but when the Med Stream is completed it would take 19 days to transport crude from the Red Sea.

    ‘red sea’? do they mean ‘black sea’? 2008

  • Polanski's backers, ranging from fellow directors to French culture and foreign ministers, criticized U.S. and Los Angeles judicial authorities for seeking what they called crude revenge against a major artist who deserved more respect.

    Roman Polanski freed after Swiss reject U.S. extradition request 2010

  • Polanski's backers, ranging from fellow directors to French culture and foreign ministers, criticized U.S. and Los Angeles judicial authorities for seeking what they called crude revenge against a major artist who deserved more respect.

    Roman Polanski freed after Swiss reject U.S. extradition request 2010

  • Polanski's backers, ranging from fellow directors to French culture and foreign ministers, criticized U.S. and Los Angeles judicial authorities for seeking what they called crude revenge against a major artist who deserved more respect.

    Roman Polanski freed after Swiss reject U.S. extradition request 2010

  • LEMON: Well, what he said to me earlier -- and we're going to talk to him in just a little bit, we've just got him on the phone, Wolf -- he said that he made some crude -- what he called crude and hurtful comments that he much rather have made to the senator in private.

    CNN Transcript Jul 9, 2008 2008

  • Reverend Jesse Jackson is apologizing for what he calls crude and hurtful comments about Barack Obama.

    CNN Transcript Jul 9, 2008 2008

  • The Reverend Jesse Jackson apologizing to Senator Barack Obama for making what he calls crude comments that were picked up by a live television microphone.

    CNN Transcript Jul 10, 2008 2008

  • James Boyle expressed what he termed a crude political fear, which closely tracked the Benkler-Sunder exchange: There are two schools of thought in WIPO – (1) optimistic: the traditional knowledge initiative can show the narrowness and blindness of current IP conceptions, which need to bring together effects on environment and other distributional issues; and (2) cynical: access to knowledge is a threat to WIPO, and traditional knowledge protections are the bone to be thrown.

    Cultural Environmentalism at 10: Madhavi Sunder Rebecca Tushnet 2006

  • But what we call crude forms are often in reality germinal forms; and one or other of these flowered at once into the practical conclusion that God must know all his trouble, and would work for him a worthy peace.

    Malcolm George MacDonald 1864

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Crudo, in Italian, means simply uncooked. It does not equate to the English crude.

    March 27, 2009

  • I like crudités.

    March 27, 2009

  • Bilby, I know you can write some amusing phrase that will help remember this false friend. (*smiles*)

    March 27, 2009

  • Dearest and Most Honourable Dinner Invitee,

    Pray absorb this snippet of mnemonic repartee:

    If you had expected an overly generous portion of prosciutto crudo,

    You should not have requested it in manner so crude. Oh!

    March 27, 2009