nut

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /nʌt/, enPR: nŭt
  • (California, General New Zealand, Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): [nɐt]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌt

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”)).

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

     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.

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

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.

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.

• NTU, tun

• IPA^(key): [nʊ̠t]

nut (plural [please provide])

1. use, benefit

• 2007. The UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Department of Linguistics.

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”).

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʏt

nut n (uncountable)

1. use, point, sense

   Synonym: zin

2. benefit

   Synonym: voordeel

• nuttig
• nutteloos
• onnut

From Old Norse hnútr.

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

1. a tall, rounded mountain top

• “nut” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Old Norse hnútr.

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

1. a tall, rounded mountain top

• “nut” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

• not

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

nut f

1. nut

• Swedish: nöt

nut f

1. genitive plural of nuta

• IPA^(key): /nʌʔ/

nut

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

nut

1. Alternative form of naut

• Elizabeth Pearce, A Grammar of Unua (2015)