/kruhf'tee/ [Possibly from "crusty"] 1. Poorly built, possibly over-complex. The canonical example is "This is standard old crufty DEC software". In fact, one fanciful theory of the origin of "crufty" holds that it was originally a mutation of "crusty" applied to DEC software so old that the "s" characters were tall and skinny, looking more like "f" characters.

2. (Sometimes spelled "cruftie") A small crufty object (see frob); often one that doesn't fit well into the scheme of things. "A Lisp property list is a good place to store crufties (or, collectively, random cruft)."

[Jargon File]