Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To jab or poke, as with a pointed object.
  • transitive verb To goad to action; incite.
  • noun A pointed object used to prod.
  • noun An incitement; a stimulus.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A pointed (often blunt-pointed) weapon or instrument, as a goad or an awl.
  • noun A long wooden pin used to secure thatch upon a roof. See the quotation.
  • noun A crossbow used for throwing balls of metal or stone. Compare stone-bow.
  • noun [⟨ prod, v.] A prick or punch with a pointed or somewhat blunt instrument; a poke.
  • noun A pyramidal or conical point which protrudes from the face of a loam-plate or a core-plate for the purpose of holding or retaining the loam.
  • To prick or punch with a pointed instrument; goad; poke.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To thrust some pointed instrument into; to prick with something sharp; ; hence, to goad, to incite, to worry.
  • noun A pointed instrument for pricking or puncturing, as a goad, an awl, a skewer, etc.
  • noun A prick or stab which a pointed instrument.
  • noun A light kind of crossbow; -- in the sense, often spelled prodd.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To poke, to push, to touch.
  • verb To encourage, to prompt.
  • noun A device (often electrical) used to goad livestock into moving.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb urge on; cause to act
  • verb to push against gently
  • noun a pointed instrument that is used to prod into a state of motion
  • verb poke or thrust abruptly
  • noun a verbalization that encourages you to attempt something

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English brodden, from Old Norse broddr ("shaft, spike"), from Proto-Germanic *bruzdaz. Cognate with Icelandic broddur, Danish brod.

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Examples

  • Hopefully not by me. * hint hint, prod prod* I should probably get around to subbing those in-game movies too.

    Anime Nano! 2009

  • Speaking from experience, there are a lot of distractions at the show and a gentle prod from a collector is a good way to remind me to hold a coin.

    Preparing Yourself for the FUN Coin Show in Orlando : Coin Collecting News 2009

  • With AFL/CIO in bed with Oregon Industries, Business Alliance, and Chamber of Commerce you know you have been bent over and the cattle prod is coming.

    Sweet nothings from the Goldschmidt people (Jack Bog's Blog) 2009

  • Like this one best but they were all superb efforts I prod is fabulous too!!!

    The Sensible Season Newmania 2008

  • The mutawwa'in prod shoppers to say their devotions when the shops close for prayer, several times daily.

    The Kingdom in the Closet 2007

  • The mutawwa'in prod shoppers to say their devotions when the shops close for prayer, several times daily.

    The Kingdom in the Closet 2007

  • The mutawwa'in prod shoppers to say their devotions when the shops close for prayer, several times daily.

    The Kingdom in the Closet 2007

  • Carlotta was a "prod"; it was only because she came at the end of the alphabet that she was left out, but thanks to Betty's fly-away fashion of running off to speak to some junior ushers, and then calling the Blunderbuss, whose mother wanted to see her a minute, nobody could find out positively who it was that had been "flunked out" of 19 --.

    Betty Wales Senior Margaret Warde

  • Clara Ellis, a rather lugubrious individual, who had been put on the committee because she was a "prod" in "English lit.," and not because she had the least bit of executive ability.

    Betty Wales Senior Margaret Warde

  • Drawn at first by my incredulity that any­one would actu­ally name a prod­uct “Nads”, I quickly got sucked in by the fun Aus­tralian accents, the video (shown over and over) of a wife wax­ing her husband’s back hair, and the infec­tious exu­ber­ance of the prod­uct demon­stra­tors.

    And If You Call Now … « Snarkmarket 2005

Comments

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  • Ugh, ugh, ugh. Australian Macworld has published this travesty in an interview with a Microsoft Business Unit marketing manager:

    "There are a lot of reasons behind that, and we expected that just because of the response to the beta version of the product. It also has a lot to do with the prod, which was a lot more Mac-ified. One of the things we really wanted to do in terms of launching the prod was looking at ways of enhancing it to provide a more simplified user experience."

    Apparently saying "product" takes too long nowadays…

    Other creepy, weasely things in this interview include:

    "I'm not across that" (try: I don't know)

    "…one thing we're doing is always listening to customer feedback to improve anonymously." (I'm not even sure that it's possible to improve anonymously…)

    "While it's essentially a different prod across the platform, it's different because the usability is different." (huh?)

    "It's called a View but it has a lot of functionality." (’cause most views are completely without function)

    "This is one of the core competencies of the product…" (whimper)

    "the OpenXML base file formats – which are a lot less susceptible to corrupting" (corruption perhaps?)

    October 21, 2008

  • *gobsmacked*

    October 21, 2008

  • That's just craze.

    October 21, 2008