Crude means rough and unfinished. A crude sketch, a crude estimate, crude but effective.
It also means rude in a coarse way: a crude joke, crude language. And it is the technical word for unrefined material: crude oil, which is the commonest use of all — crude on its own means crude oil in the whole of the energy business. Note crudely, and crudity; and that crude is the same root as cruel, both from Latin crudus, raw.
1adjectivecrudeRough and unfinished.
“The prisoners drew a crude map of the camp on a scrap of cloth.”
synonyms: rough, rudimentary
2adjectiverudeRude in a coarse way.
“His crude jokes about women embarrassed everyone at the table.”
3adjectiveunrefinedUnrefined, of oil or other material.
“Crude oil is refined a few miles up the coast.”
crude is a quality of roughness.
Middle English
crude
English, today
crude
From Middle English crude. a doublet of crudo, which was borrowed from Italian, and (more distantly) raw through Proto-Indo-European -.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA