crude

Formscruder, crudest

1. 1
   noununcountableabbreviationellipsis

   Short for crude oil. Use it to mean the oil that comes out of the ground before it is cleaned.

   The tanker was full of crude headed for the refinery.

   Cheap crude helped push gasoline prices down this month.

   Note
2. 2
   adjective

   Rude or offensive, showing no care for good manners or other people's feelings.

   Like saying something nasty at dinner that makes people stop eating.

   His crude joke made everyone at the table uncomfortable.

   She apologized for the crude remark she had made earlier.

   Similarvulgar, coarse, blunt, gross, earthy

   Oppositetasteful, refined, polite, decent

3. 3
   adjective

   Made in a simple, rough way, without much care or skill.

   Like a drawing made fast with just a few rough lines.

   They built a crude shelter from branches and leaves.

   The map was crude but good enough to find the cabin.

   Similarrough, primitive, rudimentary, rude

   Oppositesophisticated, refined, polished, elaborate

   Note
4. 4
   adjective

   In a raw, natural state, before being cleaned or changed in any way.

   Like sugar straight from the plant, before it becomes clean white grains.

   The factory imports crude rubber from tropical farms.

   Crude ore is shipped to the smelter for processing.

   Similarraw, unprocessed, unrefined

   Oppositerefined, processed, treated

   Note
5. 5
   adjective

   Open and direct, with nothing hidden or softened.

   Like showing the bare truth with no nice wrapping around it.

   His crude honesty about the failure shocked the committee.

   She described the crisis in crude terms, hiding nothing.

   Similarobvious, plain, undisguised, unadorned

   Oppositeveiled, subtle

6. 6
   noununcountable

   Any raw material in its natural state, before it is treated or processed.

   The salt comes out of the ground as a dirty gray crude, full of sand.

   The factory washes the crude first and then sorts it by size.

7. 7
   adjective

   Describing the basic form of a word, before any endings are added.

   Like the main part of a word before you add bits to the end.

   Dictionaries list verbs in their crude form, without tense endings.

   The crude stem appears once all the suffixes are stripped away.

   Oppositeinflected

   Note

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