Duds are items or things that fail to work as intended or turn out to have little or no value, and they can refer to both objects (like a faulty battery or a malfunctioning device) and, informally, clothing or personal belongings in slang. If you’re asking about different senses of the word, here are the primary usages:
- Mechanical or functional failure: A device or item that doesn’t operate correctly, often due to a defect or misfiring. In military terms, a dud is a round or explosive that fails to detonate or fire. [general sense: reliability or failure]
- Slang for clothing: In informal American and British English, “duds” commonly means clothes or outfits, especially ones one wears or owns. [clothing sense]
- Figurative use: Describing something that is ineffective or unsuccessful, such as a “box-office dud” for a movie that fails commercially. [figurative sense]
If you had a specific context (e.g., finance, fashion, or military usage) in mind, I can tailor the explanation and examples to that context.
