Forms: 1 cwidu, cwudu, cudu, 2–5 cude, (4–5 kude), 3–5 code, (4–5 kode), 4–5 cod(de, quede, 4–7 cudde, (5–6 kudde), 4–8 quide, 7 cood, 8–9 dial. quid, 9 dial. queed, keed, 4– cud. [OE. cwidu (cweodu, cwudu, cudu) neut., gen. cwidues. App. radically identical with OHG. chuti, quiti glue, glutinous substance; stem kwed-, cf. Skr. jatu resin; in ablaut relation with ON. kváða, Sw. kåda resin, ME. CODE2.]
1. The food that a ruminating animal brings back into its mouth from its first stomach, and chews at leisure. Usually in To chew the cud.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Saints’ Lives (Skeat), xxv. 46. Þa clænan nytenu þe heora cudu ceowað.
c. 1200. Ormin, 1237. & oxe chewweþþ þær he gaþ Hiss cŭde.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 1958 (Cott.). O beist has clouen fote in tua An chewand cude [v.r. code], ȝee ete o þaa.
1382. Wyclif, Deut. xiv. 6. All beest that in two partis deuydith the clee and chewith code [1388 quide].
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 85. Cudde of bestys chewynge [1499 cod], rumen.
1587. Mascall, Govt. Cattle (1627), 40. A handfull of the hearbe called Cud-wort, which they … conueigh … into the beasts mouth to swallow, that hath lost his quide.
1591. Spenser, Virg. Gnat, 144. The whiles his flock their chawed cuds do eate.
1736. Pegge, Kenticisms, Quid, the cud.
1852. N. Hawthorne, Blithedale Rom., xxiv. They began grazing and chewing their cuds.
1880. Antrim Gloss., Keed, cud.
1888. W. Somerset Word-bk., Queed, cud. Always so pronounced.
b. fig. To chew the cud: to recall and reflect meditatively on things said, done or suffered; to ruminate: see CHEW v. 4 b.
2. Any substance used by men to keep in the mouth and chew. In OE. hwít cwidu, cudu, mastic. Now a dial. form of QUID (of tobacco).
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., II. 66. Hwit cwudu. Ibid., 182. Mid hwites cwidues duste.
1828. Webster, Cud … 2. A portion of tobacco held in the mouth and chewed.
1880. W. Cornwall Gloss., Cud, a quid of tobacco.
† 3. See quots. (? An error: not in Johnson.)
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Cud, the inner part of the Throat in Beasts.
1721. in Bailey.
1828. Webster, Cud, the inside of the mouth or throat of a beast that chews the cud.
4. Comb., as cud-chewing ppl. a.; † cud-bream (see quot.).
1591. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. v. 314. The delicate, cud-chewing Golden-eye.
1655. Moufet & Bennet, Health’s Improv. (1746), 268. There is a kind of Bream called Scarus ruminans, which we call a Cud-bream, because his Lips are ever wagging like a Cow chawing the Cud.
1800. Hurdis, Fav. Village, 205. The cud-chewing cow.
