English

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.
   • 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.

   He was driving his car like a nut.

4. (slang) The head.
   • 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.

    I kicked him in the nuts.

12. (vulgar, slang, uncountable) Semen, ejaculate.
13. An extreme enthusiast.

    a fashion nut

    a gun nut

    a 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 [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.

15. (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 = AKQJT unsuited

    a nut hand; a nut flush

16. The tumbler of a gunlock.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)

17. (nautical) A projection on each side of the shank of an anchor, to secure the stock in place.

Synonyms

• (insane person): loony, nutbag, nutcase, nutter
• (the head): bonce, noodle (see further synonyms under head)
• (a testicle): ball, bollock (taboo slang), nads

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

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

1. (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...

2. (intransitive, slang) To ejaculate (semen).

Etymology 2

Interjection

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

• tun

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ʏt

Noun

nut n ‎(uncountable)

1. use, benefit

Derived terms

• nuttig
• nutteloos
• onnut

Lojban

Rafsi

nut

1. rafsi of snuti.

Norwegian

nut, the top to the left

Etymology

From Old Norse hnútr.

Noun

nut m

1. roundend, tall mountain top

Inflection

References

• “nut” in The Bokmål Dictionary / The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Old Swedish

Alternative forms

• not

Etymology

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

Noun

nut f

1. nut

Declension

Descendants

• Swedish: nöt

Polish

Noun

nut f

1. genitive plural of nuta

Scots

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /nʌʔ/

Interjection

nut

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