• Nut

    Pronunciation

    • UK IPA: /nÊŒt/, nɐt, enPR: nÅ­t
    • US IPA: /nÊŒt/, enPR: nÅ­t
    • Rhymes: -ÊŒt

    Origin

    From Middle English nute, note, from Old English hnutu, from Proto-Germanic *hnutuz ("nut") (cf. West Frisian nút, Dutch noot, German Nuss, Danish nød, Swedish nöt), from Proto-Indo-European *knu-, *kneu- (cf. Irish cnó, Latin nux ("walnut"), Albanian nyç ("a gnarl")).

    Full definition of nut

    Noun

    nut

    (plural nuts)
    1. A hard-shelled seed.There are many sort of nuts - peanuts, cashews, pistachios, Brazil nuts and more.
    2. 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.
    3. (slang) A crazy person.He was driving his car like a nut.
    4. (slang) The head.
      • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, 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) Financial term for 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. (musical instruments, lutherie) 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.
    9. (typography slang) En, a unit of measurement equal to half of the height of the type in use.
    10. (historical, UK slang) An extravagantly fashionable young man of the 1910s and 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, rarely used in the singular) A testicle.I kicked him in the nuts.
    12. (vulgar, slang) Semen, ejaculate.
    13. An extreme enthusiast.a fashion nuta gun nuta sailing nut
    14. (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 #2 were used for this purpose.)
      • 2005, Tony Lourens, Guide to climbing page 88When placing nuts, always look for constrictions within the crack, behind which the nut can be wedged.
    15. (poker, only in attributive use) Relating to the nuts, the best possible hand on a given board.
    16. The tumbler of a gunlock.
    17. (nautical) A projection on each side of the shank of an anchor, to secure the stock in place.

    Synonyms

    Derived terms

    Terms derived from nut (noun)

    Verb

    1. (UK, transitive, slang) To hit deliberately with the head; to headbutt.
      • 1999, Nik Cohn, Yes we have no: adventures in the other EnglandOne 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...
    2. (intransitive, slang) To ejaculate (semen).

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