I. ˈkrüd adjective
( -er/-est )
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin crudus raw — more at raw
1. : in a natural state : not cooked or prepared by fire or heat : not altered or prepared for use by any process : raw
crude flesh
: not refined
crude sugar
crude rubber
2. obsolete : undigested : not digestible : not brought into a form to give nourishment
3. obsolete : unripe : not mature or perfect : immature , undeveloped
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude — John Milton
4. : marked by the primitive, gross, or elemental or by the most readily apprehended : wanting subtlety, nuance, or complexity : low in perception, analysis, or appreciation
a crude notion
a crude theory
it was there that the crude dogmatism of New England was refined and humanized — H.L.Mencken
5. : marked by uncultivated simplicity : wanting in elegance, discrimination, or polish especially in choice of words or figures
cruder, because less capable of expressing complicated, subtle, and surprising emotions — T.S.Eliot
: noticeable or offensive for vulgarity
crude barracks conversations
: harshly loud : grating : unpleasant through lack of modulation or relief
the China asters smear their crude colors — Amy Lowell
6. : quite oblivious or contemptuous of the refined or elevated
the crude masses of Teutondom which poured into Provincia to be leavened by its culture — H.O.Taylor
7. : rough or inexpert in plan or execution : wanting advanced technical skill in contrivance and elegance in effect
the cruder means of transportation, by wooden ships propelled by the wind … by oxcart — A.C.Morrison
8. : lacking any covering, glossing, concealing, or masking : lacking mitigation, alleviation, or reservation : obvious , sheer , utter , bald , stark
crude facts
crude necessity
crude sensation
not the crude beauty of the eye. It was not beauty pure and simple — Virginia Woolf
9. archaic : constituting the part of a word that remains constant or nearly constant throughout a paradigm : being the base to which inflectional affixes are attached
the stem or crude form of a word
10. of statistics : tabulated without breaking down into classes
crude death rate
11. of animal feedstuffs : reacting like members of a particular class of nutrients to certain identifying tests though not necessarily chemically a member of such class
crude protein includes all the nitrogenous compounds of a feed
crude fat is high in this analysis but digestible fats are low
Synonyms: see rude
II. noun
( -s )
: a substance in its natural unprocessed state: as
a. : crude oil
b. : initial products of distillation of crude oil without cracking or other treatment
c. : a crude substance (as benzene, toluene, xylene, cresol, naphthalene, anthracene, or carbazole) distilled from coal tar