nut
/nʌt/ noun, verb, interjection, proper noun
Also a form of not
Forms nuts nutting nutted Not Nunut Nenet Nuit
- noun (food, loosely) Any of various hard-shelled seeds or hard, dry fruits from various families of plants. “There are many sorts of nuts: peanuts, cashews, pistachios, Brazil nuts and more.”
- noun (botany, strictly) Such a fruit that is indehiscent.
- noun (hardware) A piece of hardware, typically metal and typically hexagonal or square in shape, with a hole through it having internal screw threads, intended to be screwed onto a threaded bolt or other threaded shaft.
- noun (slang) The head. [from 19th c.]
- noun (slang) A crazy person. “He was driving his car like a nut.”
- noun (colloquial) An extreme enthusiast. “a fashion nut — a gun nut — a sailing nut”
- noun (UK, Ireland, slang, dated) An extravagantly fashionable young man.
- noun (archaic) The glans (structure at the extremity of the penis or of the clitoris).
- verb (mostly in the form "nutting") To gather nuts.
- verb (UK, transitive, slang) To hit deliberately with the head; to headbutt.
- verb (slang, mildly vulgar) To orgasm; to ejaculate.
- verb (slang) To hit in the testicles.
- verb (slang) To defeat thoroughly.
- interjection (Scotland, colloquial) No.
- proper noun (Egyptian mythology) The goddess who serves as the personification of the sky.
Synonyms
coconut bonce noodle nutjob nut job nutcase nut case nutbag nutter wingnut basket case basket weaver crack crackpot crazy crazyhead dingbat eccentric fruit and nut case fruit cake en crank fruitcake screwball addict freak junkie junky testis testicle
Etymology
From Middle English note, nute, from Old English hnutu, from Proto-West Germanic *hnut, from Proto-Germanic *hnuts (“nut”), from a root *knu- possibly shared with Proto-Celtic *knūs and Latin nux (“nut”). Based on the form of the nouns and the restriction of the root to Germanic, Celtic and Italic, it has been argued to be of non-Indo-European (substrate) origin.
See also West Frisian nút, Dutch noot, German Nuss, Danish nød, Swedish nöt, Norwegian nøtt.
Variant of not.
Borrowed from Egyptian nwt (“Nut, sky”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun 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.
- noun 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 lst Bolt.
- verb To gather nuts.
Etymology [OE. nute, note, AS. hnutu; akin to D. noot, G. nuss, OHG. nuz, Icel. hnot, Sw. nöt, Dan. nöd.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “nut”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details