bud

Pluralbuds

Formsbuds, budding, budded

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A leaf or flower that has just sprouted and has not yet unfolded.

   Tiny buds appeared on the apple tree after the first warm week of spring.

   She cut the peony while it was still in bud so it would open in the vase.

   Note

   This is the botanical sense the others grow from. Middle English budde could also mean a seed pod, and the word may go back to a root meaning "to swell". As a countable noun it names each swelling on a twig; as an uncountable one it turns up in the phrase in bud, for a plant whose flowers have formed but not yet opened.

2. 2
   nouncolloquialCanadaUScountable

   A friend; a buddy.

   We've been buds since college, and he still calls me every week.

   She brought her best bud along to the concert.

   Similarbuddy, chum, companion, comrade

   Oppositeenemy

   Note

   Buddy came first, and this word was cut from it by back-formation, so it is every bit as casual. It often turns up in the plural for a circle of friends (my buds) and in best bud, a closest friend. It belongs to US and Canadian speech and sounds out of place in formal writing.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To form buds, as a tree or other plant does.

   In a mild year the lilacs bud weeks ahead of schedule.

   By late March the oaks along the river were budding.

   Similarsprout

   Note

   The everyday plant verb takes no object: an orchard is budding while its buds swell. The King James Bible of 1611 says Aaron's rod "was budded, and brought forth buds", forming the perfect with be, as older English often did with verbs of change; modern English says has budded. When the thing that grows is named as an object, the verb becomes its transitive partner.

4. 4
   nounfigurativelycountable or uncountable

   Something that is just beginning to grow or take shape.

   Her early sketches held the bud of the style that later made her famous.

   The manager nipped the rumor in the bud with a frank email to the staff.

   Similarseed, germ

5. 5
   nounslangAustraliaCanadaUScountable or uncountable

   Cannabis taken from the flowering parts of the plant and meant for smoking; also, marijuana in general.

   He kept a jar of buds hidden on the top shelf of his closet.

   The dispensary sells bud by the gram.

   Similarmarijuana, cannabis, grass, herb, ganja

   Note

   Here the word is drug slang in the US, Canada and Australia, named for the flowering tops of the plant, which yield potent cannabis. When counted it is usually plural (any buds?), and as a mass noun it means the drug itself; nug is a slang near-synonym. In news reports or medical writing, cannabis and marijuana are the neutral words.

6. 6
   nouncolloquialCanadacountable

   A guy; also a casual word for addressing a man or any person directly.

   Thanks for the lift, bud. I owe you one.

   Some bud at the rink lent me his skates for the game.

   Similarguy

   Note

   As a form of address this bud is chiefly Canadian, and it needs no friendship behind it: a stranger can say it as easily as a friend. It works like guy, for talking about a man or for speaking to someone directly (that's life, ain't it, bud?). It comes from the same clipped buddy as the word for a friend but claims no closeness.

7. 7
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A small rounded body that is splitting off from an organism and may grow into a new, genetically identical organism.

   Under the microscope, a tiny bud was pinching off from the yeast cell.

   The bud on the side of the hydra will soon break free and live as a separate animal.

8. 8
   verbintransitive

   To reproduce by forming buds that split away from the parent organism.

   Yeast cells bud rapidly in warm, sugary dough.

   In the warm tank the hydras budded quickly, and within weeks there were dozens of them.

   Note

   The construction to know is reproduce by budding, where the -ing form names the process: yeast multiplies this way, each new cell swelling out from the side of the old one and pinching off. It is the verb behind the biologist's noun, and unlike the plant verb, what forms is a whole new organism rather than a leaf or flower.

9. 9
   verbtransitive

   To graft a plant by inserting one of its buds under the bark of another tree.

   The nursery budded the young apple trees in late August.

   Growers bud the peach variety onto hardy rootstock so that it survives cold winters.

   Similargraft

10. 10
    verbintransitive

    To begin to grow, or to sprout from a base in the way a bud does, as a horn does.

    Tiny horns were just budding on the calf's head.

    After the second meeting, doubts began to bud among the volunteers.

    Similarsprout, grow, emerge

    Note

    Two kinds of beginning share this verb: horns breaking through on a young animal, the picture behind the word for a first-year calf, and feelings or ideas starting to grow, as when dissent buds among new recruits. It sits naturally in the progressive (dissent was budding) or after begin, which keep the stress on how young the thing still is.

11. 11
    verbtransitive

    To put something out in the form of a bud.

    After years of neglect, the old rosebush finally budded a single white flower.

    Every spring the bare branches bud tiny pink blossoms almost overnight.

    Similarsprout, produce

    Note

    The object of this verb is the thing put forth: a topiary tree that "finally budded a rose" in Julie Brown's The Brownstone (2013), or a man in Tom Lamont's 2020 report who woke on hormone pills to find he was "budding breasts". Most plants simply bud, as the plain plant verb has it; this pattern names what appears.

12. 12
    verbintransitive

    To be like a bud in being young and fresh, or in growing and showing promise.

    A budding scientist, she spent every weekend building circuits in the garage.

    The town's budding arts scene now fills three galleries on Main Street.

    Similaremerge, blossom, develop

    Note

    The participle budding, set before a noun, is the usual home of this sense: a budding scientist is new to the field and full of promise. Shakespeare uses the same shape in The Taming of the Shrew for a "young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet", where it is youth and freshness rather than talent that is just opening.

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