nut

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See also: Nut, NUT, nút, nût, and -nut

English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

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A bowl of mixed nuts (hard-shelled seeds).
Assorted nuts (fasteners with internal threads).
The nut of a violin.

From Middle English nute, note, from Old English hnutu, from Proto-Germanic *hnuts (“nut”) (compare West Frisian nút, Dutch noot, German Nuss, Danish nød, Swedish nöt, Norwegian nøtt), from Proto-Indo-European *knew- (compare Irish cnó, Latin nux (“walnut”), Albanian nyç (“a gnarl”)).

Noun[edit]

nut (plural nuts)

  1. A hard-shelled seed.
    There are many sort of nuts: peanuts, cashews, pistachios, Brazil nuts and more.
  2. A piece of metal, usually square or hexagonal in shape, with a hole through it having machined internal threads, intended to be screwed onto a bolt or other threaded shaft.
    Hypernym: fastener
    • 1998, Brian Hingley, Furniture Repair & Refinishing - Page 95[1]
      As the bolt tightens into the nut, it pulls the tenon on the side rail into the mortise in the bedpost and locks them together. There are also some European beds that reverse the bolt and nut by setting the nut into the bedpost with the bolt inserted into a slotted area in the side of the rail.
  3. (slang) A crazy person.
    Synonyms: loony, nutbag, nutcase, nutter, → Thes:mad person
    He was driving his car like a nut.
  4. (slang) The head.
    Synonyms: bonce, noodle
    • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter V:
      Let the Cream get firmly in her nut the idea that Sir Roderick Glossop was not the butler, the whole butler and nothing but the butler, and disaster, as I saw it, loomed.
  5. (US, slang) Monthly expense to keep a venture running.
  6. (US, slang) The amount of money necessary to set up some venture; set-up costs.
    • 1971, Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Harper Perennial (2005), page 11:
      My attorney was waiting in a bar around the corner. “This won't make the nut,” he said, “unless we have unlimited credit.”
  7. (US, slang) A stash of money owned by an extremely rich investor, sufficient to sustain a high level of consumption if all other money is lost.
  8. (music, lutherie) On stringed instruments such as guitars and violins, the small piece at the peghead end of the fingerboard that holds the strings at the proper spacing and, in most cases, the proper height.
  9. (typography slang) En, a unit of measurement equal to half of the height of the type in use.
  10. (dated, Britain, slang) An extravagantly fashionable young man. [1910s-1920s]
    • 1914, "Saki", ‘The Dreamer’, Beasts and Superbeasts, Penguin 2000 (Complete Short Stories), p. 323:
      ‘You are not going to be what they call a Nut, are you?’ she inquired with some anxiety, partly with the idea that a Nut would be an extravagance which her sister's small household would scarcely be justified in incurring [...].
  11. (vulgar, slang, chiefly plural) A testicle.
    Synonyms: ball, bollock (taboo slang), nads
    I kicked him in the nuts.
  12. (vulgar, slang, uncountable) Semen, ejaculate.
    • 2005 July, “Breakdown”, in Spin, page 104:
      As loudmouthed lovermen, these Lil Jon-endorsed ATLiens denigrate women from the window to the wall, generously offering to "make nut come out your nose."
  13. (vulgar, slang, countable) Orgasm (male), ejaculation, release of semen
    He just needs a good nut to make him feel better.
  14. (colloquial) An extreme enthusiast.
    a fashion nut
    a gun nut
    a sailing nut
  15. (climbing) A shaped piece of metal, threaded by a wire loop, which is jammed in a crack in the rockface and used to protect a climb. (Originally, machine nuts [sense #2] were used for this purpose.)
    • 2005, Tony Lourens, Guide to climbing page 88
      When placing nuts, always look for constrictions within the crack, behind which the nut can be wedged.
  16. (poker, only in attributive use) The best possible hand of a certain type, especially: "nut flush" and "nut straight". Compare nuts (“the best possible hand available”).
    If you have two cards of spades in your hand, one being the ace, and the table has any three or more cards of spades, congratulations, you have the nut flush! A full house could still beat you, though.
    nut straight
    a nut hand
    a nut flush
  17. The tumbler of a gunlock.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)
  18. (nautical) A projection on each side of the shank of an anchor, to secure the stock in place.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb[edit]

nut (third-person singular simple present nuts, present participle nutting, simple past and past participle nutted or (nonstandard) nut)


  1. (mostly in the form "nutting") To gather nuts.
    • 1847, Howitt's Journal of Literature and Popular Progress
      […] the huge country fellow […] leapt forth from the underwood, exclaiming "That is not allowed, gentlemen! That is not allowed! Nobody is allowed to nut here; I must take your names to Sir John!"
  2. (Britain, transitive, slang) To hit deliberately with the head; to headbutt.
    • 1999, Nik Cohn, Yes we have no: adventures in the other England
      One night, we were fumbling each other out by the toilets when a Rocker in full leathers came out of the Gents and, without breaking stride or saying a word, nutted me square between the eyes. I went down as though shot...
  3. (vulgar, slang) To ejaculate.

Etymology 2[edit]

Interjection[edit]

nut

  1. (Scotland, colloquial) No.
    • 1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage 2015, p. 26:
      Did you like them boys? I goes.
      Nut. She shook her hair.
      Neither?
      Nut. Right townies.

Anagrams[edit]

Afrikaans[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

nut (plural [please provide])

  1. use, benefit

References[edit]

Dutch[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From the adjective Middle Dutch nutte (“useful”), or from Middle Dutch nut (“yield”), from Old Dutch *nut, from Proto-Germanic *nutją, *nutjō (“profit, yield, utility”), from Proto-Indo-European *newd- (“to seize; grasp; use”).

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

nut n (uncountable)

  1. use, point, sense
    Synonym: zin
  2. benefit
    Synonym: voordeel

Derived terms[edit]

Norwegian Bokmål[edit]

nut, the top to the left

Etymology[edit]

From Old Norse hnútr.

Noun[edit]

nut m (definite singular nuten, indefinite plural nuter, definite plural nutene)

  1. a tall, rounded mountain top

References[edit]

Norwegian Nynorsk[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old Norse hnútr.

Noun[edit]

nut m (definite singular nuten, indefinite plural nutar, definite plural nutane)

  1. a tall, rounded mountain top

References[edit]

Old Swedish[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old Norse hnot, from Proto-Germanic *hnuts.

Noun[edit]

nut f

  1. nut

Declension[edit]

Declension of nut (consonant stem)
singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative nut nutin nyter nytrina(r), -rena(r)
accusative nut nutina, -ena nyter nytrina(r), -rena(r)
dative nut nutinni, -inne nutum, -om nutumin, -omen
genitive nuta(r) nutinna(r) nuta nutanna

Descendants[edit]

Polish[edit]

Noun[edit]

nut f

  1. genitive plural of nuta

Scots[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Interjection[edit]

nut

  1. (South Scots) no; used to show disagreement or negation.

Unua[edit]

Noun[edit]

nut

  1. Alternative form of naut

Further reading[edit]

  • Elizabeth Pearce, A Grammar of Unua (2015)
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