sod
part of speech
noun (sod, sods); verb (sod off, sod it — rude); adjective-like «sodding» (rude)
meaning for a pupil
1) A piece of grass with the earth and roots under it; turf. tree →
2) (rude, UK, Ireland, Australia) An insulting word for an annoying or unpleasant person. tree →
3) (rude, UK) «Poor sod»: an unlucky person you feel sorry for. tree →
4) (rude, UK) «Sod it» or «sod this»: said when you are fed up and give up. tree →
5) (rude, UK) «Sod off»: go away. tree →
6) (UK, informal) «Sod's law»: the idea that if something can go wrong, it will. tree →
sense in the lessons
The grass sense is used in gardening and old stories (turning the first sod). The rude senses are mild swearing in British, Irish and Australian speech, heard in films and from grown-ups when angry; pupils should know them but not use them at school. Phrases: «sod off», «sod it», «poor sod», «Sod's law», «a lazy sod».
examples
- They laid fresh sod on the football field. tree →
- The mayor turned the first sod for the new school. tree →
- (rude) «Sod off and leave me alone!» tree →
- (rude) «Sod it, I'm going home,» said Dad. tree →
- (rude) The poor sod missed the bus again. tree →
- (UK) Of course it rained on sports day — Sod's law! tree →
- (rude) «You lazy sod, get up!» tree →
- And his horse cast up four sods with his four hoofs, like four swallows in the air about his head, now above, now below. tree →
note
Rude senses are mild swearing — not for school, homework or polite talk. Mostly UK, Irish and Australian; Americans rarely use them. The grass sense is countable (a sod, sods) and polite. Not related to «soda» or «sodium».
In the corpora
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «sod» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.