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spudding

Farming
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Spudding means digging or loosening earth with a spud or similar tool.

Detailed Definition
A spud is a short-handled digging tool, and spudding can refer to using it in agricultural work, including lifting potatoes. The poem uses the term to evoke the hard manual labor 'Melia abandoned.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks” — spudding means digging or cutting up with a spade, especially removing weeds; docks are deep-rooted plants that demand hard labor to clear; the verb gives the line a practical, physical farming rhythm; potato work commonly appears in Irish and rural British poetry as a sign of endurance; compare Seamus Heaney’s digging imagery in “Digging”
Additional Notes
“Spudding” is specialized agricultural vocabulary for digging with a spud, as shown in “spudding up docks.”; Found in the poem, The Ruined Maid by Thomas Hardy
Also Known As
digging tilling planting
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