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PlainSpell

cruft

/kɹʌft/noun, verb

cruft is a noun meaning “Anything that is old or of inferior quality” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-R-U-F-T and has one syllable (cruft), and it appears about once in every 20 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does cruft mean?

noun

  1. 1

    slangAnything that is old or of inferior quality.

  2. 2

    slangRedundant, old or improperly written code, especially that which accumulates over time.

  3. 3

    slangMeaningless or gratuitous content displayed on computer consoles in visual entertainment productions.

verb

  1. 1

    slangTo generate cruft.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce cruft?

  • /kɹʌft/

Cruft has one syllable, split cruft in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-cruft.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of cruft

  • crufts present, singular, he/she/it
  • crufting participle, present
  • crufted participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is cruft?

Cruft appears about once in every 20 million words in written English, the 136,649th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Cruft in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense anything old or of inferior quality:

LanguageWords
GermanÜberflüssiges, Krempel, Ramsch, Schrott, Müll
Portuguesetranqueira

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does cruft come from?

Circa 1959, MIT Tech Model Railroad Club. Unknown origin; possibly from Cruft Hall, built in 1915 as a gift from a donor named Harriet Otis Cruft. Cruft Hall was the radar laboratory of Harvard's physics department during the Second World War, which contained much old and unused technical equipment. Possibly blend of crust + fluff, both of which may form on old abandoned things, or influenced by crud.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).