subs. (colloquial).—Clothes; sometimes old clothes or rags. [Scots dud, Dutch todde, a rag; O. E. dudde = cloth. DUDDERY = a clothiers’ booth (DEFOE, A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, p. 125).] In America applied to any kind of portable property (Cf., quots., 1622, 1780, and 1884). TO ANGLE FOR DUDS, see ANGLERS; TO SWEAT DUDS = to pawn (see SWEAT).
1440. Promptorium Parvulorum, ed. Way, i, 134. DUDDE, cloth.
1567. HARMAN, A Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors (1869), p. 86. When we byng back to the deuseauyel, we wyll fylche some DUDDES of the Ruffemans.
1610. ROWLANDS, Martin Mark-all, p. 38 [Hunterian Club’s Reprint, 1874]. DUDES, clothes.
1622. HEAD and KIRKMAN, The English Rogue. ‘Canting Song.’ For all your DUDS [goods] are binged avast.
1780. R. TOMLINSON, A Slang Pastoral, st. ix. No DUDS in my pocket, no sea-coal to burn.
1787. GROSE, A Provincial Glossary, etc. DUDDS, rags. Also clothes.
1819. T. MOORE, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 20. Doubled him up, like a bag of old DUDS!
1822. SCOTT, The Fortunes of Nigel, ch. v. A ragged rascal, every DUD upon whose back was bidding good-day to the other.
1841. LEMAN REDE, Sixteen-String Jack, ii. 3. Ade. Crissy, odsbuds, I’ll on with my DUDS.
1871. New York Tribune, 23 Jan. The three [railway] Commissioners, in whose appointment you had no choice, decide that you must get out, leave your house, bundle out your DUDS, and be off.
1881. A. TROLLOPE, Marian Fay, ch. iii. To see her children washed and put in and out of their DUDS was perhaps the greatest pleasure of her life.
1884. Athenæum, 19 July, p. 74, col. 2. A writer in 1784 [in Gentleman’s Magazine, Gomme, vol. II.] says, for instance, that DUDS signifies rags, tatters, and that it comes from the Celtic. We do not believe in the derivation, but will not at present endeavour to refute it; we are sure the meaning is given wrongly, though it has the authority of Halliwell and Wedgwood in recent times. DUDS, in the northern dialects means small things, or things of little account, whether articles of clothing, trade, or merchandise. We have frequently heard the word applied to workmen’s tools; and in an unprinted churchwarden’s account of an eastern shire we find in the year 1501 mention of ‘CLOCKE-DUDES.’ From the context it is evident that the small wheels belonging to the town clock are meant.
