Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An indehiscent, hard-shelled, one-loculated, one-seeded fruit, such as an acorn or hazelnut.
- n. A seed borne within a fruit having a hard shell, as in the peanut, almond, or walnut.
- n. The kernel of any of these.
- n. Slang A crazy or eccentric person.
- n. Slang An enthusiast; a buff: a movie nut.
- n. Informal A difficult endeavor or problem: Painting the closet was a tough nut to crack.
- n. Slang The human head.
- n. Music A ridge of wood at the top of the fingerboard or neck of a stringed instrument, over which the strings pass.
- n. Music A device at the lower end of the bow for a stringed instrument, used for tightening the hairs.
- n. A small block of metal or wood with a central, threaded hole that is designed to fit around and secure a bolt or screw.
- n. Slang The cost of launching a business venture.
- n. Slang The operating expenses of a theater, theatrical production, or similar enterprise: "The [theater] has simply failed to attract enough paying customers per week to meet its nut” ( Variety).
- n. Vulgar Slang A testicle.
- v. To gather or hunt for nuts.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The fruit of certain trees and shrubs which have the seed inclosed in a bony, woody, or leathery covering, not opening when ripe. Specifically, a hard one-celled and one-seeded indehiscent fruit, like an achenium, but larger and usually produced from an ovary of two or more cells with one or more ovules in each, all but a single ovule and cell having disappeared during its growth. The nuts of tho hazel, beech, oak, and chestnut are examples. In the walnut (Juglans) and hickory (Carya) the fruit is a kind of drupaceous nut, seemingly intermediate between a stone-fruit and a nut.
- n. In machinery, some small part supposed in some way to resemble a nut. Specifically— A small cylinder or other body with teeth or projections corresponding with the teeth or grooves of a wheel.
- n. Same as chestnut-coal.
- n. plural Something especially agreeable or enjoyable.
- n. plural The testicles.
- n. A cup made of the shell of a cocoanut or some other nut, often mounted in silver.
- n. A bulbous plant, Iris Sisyrinchium, of southern Europe.
- To gather nuts: used especially in the present participle.
- n. Loosely, a similar vegetable product, as a tuberous root (earth-nut, ground-nut), leguminous pod (peanut), or seed(physic-nut).
- n. In general, the lower end or heel of the bow: opposed to point or head.
- n. In Australia:
- n. See the extract.
- n. A daredevil.
Wiktionary
- n. A hard-shelled seed.
- n. A fastener: 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.
- n. slang A crazy person.
- n. slang The head.
- n. US Financial term for monthly expense to keep a venture running.
- n. US, slang The amount of money necessary to set up some venture; set-up costs.
- n. 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.
- n. music On string 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.
- n. En, a unit of measurement equal to half of the height of the type in use.
- n. historical, UK slang An extravagantly fashionable young man of the 1910s and 1920s.
- n. vulgarity, slang, rarely used in the singular A testicle.
- n. vulgarity, slang Semen, ejaculate.
- n. An extreme enthusiast.
- n. poker Relating to the nuts, the best possible hand on a given board.
- v. UK, transitive, slang To hit deliberately with the head; to headbutt.
- v. intransitive, slang To ejaculate (semen).
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Bot.) The fruit of certain trees and shrubs (as of the almond, walnut, hickory, beech, filbert, etc.), consisting of a hard and indehiscent shell inclosing a kernel.
- n. A perforated block (usually a small piece of metal), provided with an internal or female screw thread, used on a bolt, or screw, for tightening or holding something, or for transmitting motion. See
Illust. of 1st Bolt. - n. The tumbler of a gunlock.
- n. (Naut.) A projection on each side of the shank of an anchor, to secure the stock in place.
- n. vulgar slang Testicles.
- v. To gather nuts.
WordNet 3.0
- n. Egyptian goddess of the sky
- n. someone who is so ardently devoted to something that it resembles an addiction
- v. gather nuts
- n. usually large hard-shelled seed
- n. a small (usually square or hexagonal) metal block with internal screw thread to be fitted onto a bolt
- n. half the width of an em
- n. a whimsically eccentric person
- n. one of the two male reproductive glands that produce spermatozoa and secrete androgens
Etymologies
- From Middle English nute, note, from Old English hnutu, from Proto-Germanic *hnutuz (“nut”) (cf. West Frisian nút, Dutch noot, German Nuss), from Proto-Indo-European *knu-, *kneu- (cf. Irish cnó, Latin nux ("walnut"), Albanian nyç ("a gnarl")). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English nute, from Old English hnutu. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Legion thinks the nut is a hero and is true to the beliefs of the tea bag movement.”
Think Progress » Scott Brown Yawns At Plane Attack On IRS Building: ‘No One Likes Paying Taxes’
“Where in the story did it say the nut is a teabagger anyway?”
“He talked more about what I call nut control, instead of gun control.”
“From the first, the English word nut meant an edible seed surrounded by a hard shell, and this remains the common meaning.”
Simon & Schuster: On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
“In this connection I desire to make a statement which may come as a surprise to many, and that is this: I have but lately -- within the past few days, in fact -- been informed that among persons addicted to the vice of slang the term nut is occasionally applied to other persons whom they suspect of being mentally incapable or, in short, deranged.”
“If Ebenezer had a special weakness it was for doughnuts, which he called nut-cakes.”
“If you are a label nut, rather than making up a toy classification system on your own, ask your kids how they would like to see their toys categorized.”
“If I may be blunt, here is what we call the nut graph of this post:”
“Any kind of nut is fine for dukkah; hazelnuts or almonds are frequently used.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘nut’.
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Sweet tooth fairy dominoes
As originally suggested on sweet tooth fairy domino:
Each person adds one word trying to create a single, potentially infinite sweet tooth fairy (please look it up if you are not familiar wit...banana, boat, house, arrest, warrant, peace, sign, post, box, clever, Hans, device and 119 more...
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EN - 3-letter words of the pattern CVC
With the exception of abbreviations and mosaic words all types of words (proper names, past tense of verbs, etc.) are allowed.
for, was, not, his, but, has, had, can, her, him, new, now and 339 more...
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CULI - wine-tasting adjectives
In this area of expertise nouns are frequently used as adjectives (almond, bacon, cider, diesel, fennel, fresh-cut hay, wool) or new adjectives are formed (appley, berrylike, citrusy, full-bodied, ...
acetic, acidic, aged, angular, appley, astringent, attractive, austere, berrylike, big, bitter, brawny and 511 more...
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IMCO - EU nomenclature
includes words of the "Prodcom list"
abaca, abdominal, abrasive, absorbent, absorber, accelerator, accessory, account book, accumulator, acebutolol, acetaldehyde, acetamide and 4515 more...
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RELI - Genesis
Protagonists and relevant words in the Book of Creation (Source: King James Bible)
Laban, circumcise, beget, Esau, Rebekah, speckle, Sodom, Pharaoh, Canaanite, Canaan, Jacob, Lot and 1286 more...
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A Galimafrée of Plant Anatomy & Morph...
A hodgepodge, jumble, jambalaya, *gallimaufry, circus and tent revival of plant anatomy and morphology terms and phrases - its a big tent, and no tickets are required.
*array, collecti...naked bud, leaf blade, brochidodromous, serrate, cork cambium, rhizomatous, flower stalk, deciduous sepal, petal, whorl, nectar gland, stamen and 1348 more...
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SCIE - neurology
abducens.....draw..., ablation.....carr..., acetylcholine......., adrenalin.....nea..., afferent.....to c..., agnosia.....no kn..., alar.....wing-like, alexia.....no words, alveus.....canal, amacrine.....no l..., ambidextrous........, ambiguus.....doub... and 701 more...
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AGRI - crops/fruits/vegetables
Crops, fruits and vegetables + plant growing terms
agricultural crop, agricultural product, cranberry, mulberry, oil seed crops, protein crops, rain-fed agriculture, set-aside, soft fruit, drainage, cereals, cold storage house and 96 more...
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3-letter Scrabble Words
aah, aal, aas, aba, abo, abs, aby, ace, act, add, ado, ads and 995 more...
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3 Letter Words
A list of English words that are three letters long.
ace, act, ade, ado, add, ads, age, ago, ail, air, aim, all and 397 more...
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gists
words about central ideas and actions
gist, nub, sense, meat, core, essence, heart, crux, pith, marrow, kernel, quintessence and 35 more...
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Egyptology
Things about ancient Egypt
osiris, horus, isis, nephthys, atum, geb, nut, shu, tefnut, set, anubis, wepwawet and 7 more...
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head
words for head
( open list, randomness )
also see:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/mentally-irregularnoggin, gourd, brain, cranium, melon, skull, upstairs, attic, crown, roof, mind, plosive and 15 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 3063 more... -
Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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the gods must be crazy!
quetzalcoatl, baron-samedi, loa, orichas, arianrhod, aine, amaethon, annwn, arnemetia, balor, badbh, bean nighe and 1061 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for nut.

john "Most of the young Masters already have their own personal nut free and clear. “Nut�? is the term for the amount of money you need salted away in weather-proof investments in order to generate enough interest to live comfortably in Greenwich on Round Hill Road, Pecksland Road or Field Point Road in a house built before the First World War in an enchanting European style, preferably made of stone featuring the odd turret, with a minimum of five acres around it and big enough to be called a manor. Every Master of the Universe knows the number."
The New York Times, Greenwich Time , by Tom Wolfe, September 27, 2008 Sep 29, 2008
skipvia On a guitar, the device (opposite the tailpiece) that anchors the upper end of the strings and forms the transition between the neck and the headstock. Nov 15, 2007
applebone in addition to more mundane meanings, nut is also the name of a female egyptian deity of the night sky. Jan 10, 2007