Forms: 4–5 bodde, 5–7 budde, (6 bood, botthe), 7 budd, 6– bud. [Late ME. budde, bodde; of uncertain etymology. In ME. identical in form with BUDDE.
Prof. Skeat suggests a connection of some kind with ODu. botte, mod.Du. bot a bud, or with OF. boter, mod.F. bouter to push, put forth, whence F. bouton (see BUTTON sb.) ‘bud.’ (Franck refers the ODu. word to a Romanic source akin to or identical with OF. boter.) But such a change from t to d is anomalous.]
1. Bot. A little projection found at the axil of a leaf, composed of scales, which are small leaves, and forming the rudiment of a branch, cluster of leaves, or blossom. Hence, applied to a flower (or leaf) at any stage of growth until fully opened.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. lxxv. Sumtyme burgynge of boddes beþ gnawe and frete with flyes.
c. 1400. Purif. Marie, in Tundale’s Vis. (Turnb., 1843), 135. The comyng Of greene veer with fresch buddes new.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 234. So longe it is called the budde of a rose, as it is not a perfyte rose.
1527. Andrew, Brunswyke’s Distyll. Waters, O ij. The best flowres ben of the rede apples … whan the botthes begynne the blossome and to go open.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., II. iv. 114. A worme i’th budde.
a. 1682. Sir T. Browne, Tracts, 64. To pluck away the bearing buds, before they proceed unto flowers or fruit.
1752. Johnson, Rambl., No. 207, ¶ 8. The swelling bud and opening blossom.
1832. Tennyson, Lotos-Eaters, 71. The folded leaf is woo’d from out the bud.
1842. Gray, Struct. Bot., i. (1880), 7. An incipient stem or branch, with its rudimentary leaves, is a Bud.
b. Zool. A similar growth in animals of low organization, which develops into a new individual.
1836–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., II. 433/1. The new individual grows upon the parent as a bud or sprout.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. i. 46. The creature gives off from certain parts of its body buds or gemmæ, which at a fixed period become detached, and give rise to new animals.
2. transf. Used of things resembling buds: as the rudiment of a horn when it begins to sprout; a nipple; a pimple in farcy, a disease of horses.
1593. Nashe, Christs T. (1613), 145. Their breasts they embuske vp on hie, and their round Roseate buds immodestly lay forth.
1639. T. de Grey, Compl. Horsem., 304. This powder healeth the buds or knots of the farcin.
1641. French, Distill., iv. (1651), 103. The young buds of Harts-horne.
1702. Lond. Gaz., No. 3814/4. A … Grey Gelding … scar’d with the Farcy Buds.
3. fig. Anything in an immature or undeveloped state.
1579. Tomson, Calvin’s Serm. Tim., 238/2. Such a desire is a budde of ambition.
1592. Warner, Alb. Eng., VIII. xxxix. 193. Our decent Church-Rites … Did then put forth her Braunches, and weare fruitfull in the bood.
1632. G. Herbert, Temple, Sunday, i. The fruit of this, the next worlds bud.
1727. Thomson, Summer, 582. The wint’ry blast of death Kills not the buds of virtue.
b. Said of children or young persons, or as a term of endearment.
1595. Shaks., John, III. iv. 82. Now will Canker-sorrow eat my bud [Arthur], And chase the natiue beauty from his cheeke.
1675. Wycherley, Country Wife, II. i. You are my own dear bud. Ibid., III. ii. ’Tis no matter, no matter, bud.
1847. Tennyson, Princess, VI. 176. Her eye … dwelt Full on the child; she took it: ‘Pretty bud!… half open’d bell of the woods!’
1880. Confessions of Friv. Girl, 39. ‘This is your first party, I believe, Miss Palmer?’…
‘Yes, I am what is called a “bud.”’
c. ‘A weaned calf of the first year’ (Ray, S. and E. C. Words (1674), 60). Still in dial. use.
1662. Collect. Campsey Ash, 30, in Nichols, Bibl. Top. Brit. (1790), lii. For every gast beast and heifer, gast ware and bud [calf], three half-pence apiece.
1875. Parish, Sussex Dial., Bud, a calf of the first year, so called because the horns then begin to appear or bud.
Mod. dial. Kent. There are three halfers [heifers] and two nice young buds in the yard.
4. Phr. In bud (said of plants; cf. in leaf, in flower): budding. In the bud: not yet developed; often fig. = young, immature, ‘in the germ.’ To nip or crush in the bud: fig. to repress or destroy (a project, etc.) in its first beginnings.
1677. Horneck, Law of Consideration (1704), 89. If a tree does not thrive, if flowers do wither in the bud.
1746. Rep. Cond. Sir J. Cope (1749), 12. It was thought, that the crushing in the Bud, any Insurrection that had, or might happen, was of the greatest Importance to his Majesty’s Service.
1844. Mem. Babylonian P’cess., II. 168. The plot was apparently nipped in the bud.
1847. Tennyson, Princess, I. 31. While life was yet in bud and blade.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq., I. iv. 258. Promising germs of freedom were … crushed in the bud.
1871. Earle, Philol. Eng. Tong. (1880), § 445. A flectional word is a phrase in the bud.
5. Comb., as bud-blighted, -crowned, -like adjs., bud-coat, -generation, -scale, -time, -variation. Also bud-bird (dial.), the Bullfinch; † bud-cutter, obs. name of an insect (transl. F. lisette ‘coupe-bourgeon,’ Boiste); bud-germ (Zool.) = 1 b; bud-glue (see quot.); bud-rudiment, the cell in the embryo, from which the bud is developed.
1865. Cornh. Mag., 35. The provincial *‘bud-bird’ of Herefordshire, the bullfinch.
1820. Shelley, Prometh. Unb., IV. i. 122. The *bud-blighted flowers of happiness.
1866. Chr. Rossetti, Prince’s Progr., &c. 3. Poppies … Wrapped in *bud-coats hairy and neat.
1857. Emerson, Poems, 50. The *bud-crowned Spring.
1693. Evelyn, De la Quint. Compl. Gard., II. 100. To have the end of their new Shoots … cut off by a little black round Insect, call’d *Bud-Cutter.
1880. C. & F. Darwin, Movem. Pl., 190. A bud may revert to the character of a former state many *bud-generations ago.
1884. Bower & Scott, De Bary’s Phaner. & Ferns, 99. Hanstein has termed these organs which cover the buds with a sticky secretion ‘Beleimer,’ or Colleters, and their sticky product *bud-glue, or Blasto-colla.
1839. Bailey, Festus (1854), 42. To watch young beauty’s *budlike feelings burst And load the soul with love.
1847–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., IV. 427/1. A simple canal with bud-like processes.
1882. Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 297. A cell, which Pringsheim calls the *‘bud-rudiment.’
1880. Gray, Bot. Text-Bk., 400. *Bud-scales. The dry teguments which serve to protect the … growing point within during the season of rest.
