Definition of "bud"

bud¹

/bʌd/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural buds
1. A newly sprouted leaf or blossom that has not yet unfolded.
2. (figuratively) Something that has begun to develop.
3. A small rounded body in the process of splitting from an organism, which may grow into a genetically identical new organism.
4. (usually uncountable, slang) Potent cannabis taken from the flowering part of the plant (the "bud"), or marijuana generally.
  1. (US, Canada, Australia, slang, usually in the plural) Cannabis that has been taken from the flowering part of the plant intended to be smoked.
5. A weaned calf in its first year, so called because the horns are then beginning to bud.
6. (dated, term of endearment) A pretty young girl.
  Quotations
  My pretty bud was unfolding and I was not there to see it. She was developing so rapidly, I felt I could not be from her a day without missing some sweetness that could never come again.
  1874, Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, a Popular Journal of General Literature
verb
third-person singular simple present buds, present participle budding, simple past and past participle budded
1. (intransitive) To form buds.
  Quotations
  And it came to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Numbers 17:8
2. (intransitive) To reproduce by splitting off buds.
3. (intransitive) To begin to grow, or to issue from a stock in the manner of a bud, as a horn.
4. (intransitive) To be like a bud in respect to youth and freshness, or growth and promise.
  Quotations
  Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet, / Whither away, or where is thy abode?
  c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)
5. (transitive) To put forth as a bud.
  Quotations
  What appeared the same to us really wasn't. Every day was different, if we looked closely enough. Like the topiary tree that finally budded a rose after Terrence died: […]
  2013, Julie Brown, The Brownstone, page 263
  Once, he was put on a course of potent hormone pills, coming off them when he woke up one morning to discover he was budding breasts
  2020 September 1, Tom Lamont, “The butcher's shop that lasted 300 years (give or take)”, in The Guardian‎
6. (transitive) To graft by inserting a bud under the bark of another tree.

bud²

/bʌd/

noun
plural buds
1. (informal, Canada, US) Buddy, friend.
  Quotations
  Anna's best bud, John (Malcolm Cumming), harbors a secret crush on her, which is indicative of the lazier, more derivative portions of the story that simply repeat tropes rather than comment on them.
  2018 November 27, April Wolfe, “Anna And The Apocalypse is a Holiday-horror Cocktail of Singing, Maiming, and Clichés”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 4 November 2019
2. (informal, chiefly Canadian) used to address a male
  Quotations
  [T]hen he shrugged his shoulders and said, with admirable philosophy: "Well, that's life, ain't it, bud?"
  1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 87

Definition of "bud"

bud1

noun

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verb

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bud2

noun

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bud¹

bud²