What is "nut"

Nut \Nut\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Nutted; p. pr. & vb. n. Nutting.] To gather nuts.

Nut \Nut\ (n[u^]t), n. [OE. nute, note, AS. hnutu; akin to D. noot, G. nuss, OHG. nuz, Icel. hnot, Sw. n["o]t, Dan. n["o]d.]

1. (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.

2. 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.

3. The tumbler of a gunlock.
   --Knight.

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

5. pl. Testicles. [vulgar slang]

   Check nut, Jam nut, Lock nut, a nut which is screwed up tightly against another nut on the same bolt or screw, in order to prevent accidental unscrewing of the first nut.

   Nut buoy. See under Buoy.

   Nut coal, screened coal of a size smaller than stove coal and larger than pea coal; -- called also chestnut coal.

   Nut crab (Zo["o]l.), any leucosoid crab of the genus Ebalia as, Ebalia tuberosa of Europe.

   Nut grass (Bot.), See nut grass in the vocabulary.

   Nut lock, a device, as a metal plate bent up at the corners, to prevent a nut from becoming unscrewed, as by jarring.

   Nut pine. (Bot.) See under Pine.

   Nut rush (Bot.), a genus of cyperaceous plants ( Scleria) having a hard bony achene. Several species are found in the United States and many more in tropical regions.

   Nut tree, a tree that bears nuts.

   Nut weevil (Zo["o]l.), any species of weevils of the genus Balaninus and other allied genera, which in the larval state live in nuts.

"hard seed," Old English hnutu, from Proto-Germanic *hnut- (cognates: Old Norse hnot, Dutch noot, Old High German hnuz, German Nuss "nut"), from PIE *kneu- "nut" (cognates: Latin nux; see nucleus). Sense of "testicle" is attested from 1915. Nut-brown is from c.1300 of animals; c.1500 of complexions of women.\n

\nMeaning "crazy person, crank" is attested from 1903 (British form nutter first attested 1958; nut-case is from 1959); see nuts. American English slang sense of "amount of money required for something" is first recorded 1912. The nut that goes onto a bolt is first recorded 1610s (used of other small mechanical pieces since early 15c.). Nuts and bolts "fundamentals" is from 1960.

n. 1 A hard-shelled seed. 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 (context slang English) A crazy person. 4 (context slang English) The head. vb. 1 (context UK transitive slang English) To hit deliberately with the head; to headbutt. 2 (context intransitive slang English) To ejaculate (''semen'').

1. v. gather nuts

2. [also: nutting, nutted]

1. n. usually large hard-shelled seed

2. Egyptian goddess of the sky

3. a small (usually square or hexagonal) metal block with internal screw thread to be fitted onto a bolt

4. half the width of an em [syn: en]

5. a whimsically eccentric person [syn: crackpot, crank, nut case, nutcase, fruitcake, screwball]

6. someone who is so ardently devoted to something that it resembles an addiction; "a golf addict"; "a car nut"; "a news junkie" [syn: addict, freak, junkie, junky]

7. one of the two male reproductive glands that produce spermatozoa and secrete androgens; "she kicked him in the balls and got away" [syn: testis, testicle, orchis, ball, ballock, bollock, egg]

8. [also: nutting, nutted]

Nut, NUT, Nuts or NUTS may refer to:

Nut ( or ) or Neuth ( or ; also spelled Nuit or Newet) is the goddess of the sky in the Ennead of ancient Egyptian religion. She was seen as a star-covered nude woman arching over the earth, or as a cow.

Most seeds come from fruits that naturally free themselves from the shell, unlike nuts such as hazelnuts, chestnuts, and acorns, which have hard shell walls and originate from a compound ovary. The general and original usage of the term is less restrictive, and many nuts (in the culinary sense), such as almonds, pecans, pistachios, walnuts, and Brazil nuts, are not nuts in a botanical sense. Common usage of the term often refers to any hard-walled, edible kernel as a nut.

In rock climbing, a nut (or chock or chockstone) is a metal wedge threaded on a wire and is used for protection by wedging it into a crack in the rock. Quickdraws are clipped to the nut wire by the ascending climber and the rope threads through the quickdraw. Nuts come in a variety of sizes and styles, and several different brands are made by competing manufacturers. Most nuts are made of aluminum. Larger nuts may be threaded on Dyneema cord instead of wire, but this has become unusual.

The very smallest nuts are known as micronuts and may be made of brass or other metal, and typically have their wires soldered into them, instead of looped through drilled holes. They are mostly used in aid climbing, and their value as protection, arresting a climber's fall, is marginal due to their low breaking strength, and the tiny surface area (the HB 0 measures about 4 x 7 x 2.5 mm) in contact with the rock, though this can be offset by placing several micronuts at a time. Other names used include RPs (the brand name of the first commercially available micronuts) and brassies. They are available from several manufacturers in a variety of styles.

British climbers in the 1950s and 1960s were the first to use nuts as climbing protection. In addition to using pitons, they picked up machine nuts from the side of railway tracks, climbed with them in their pockets, and used them as artificial chocks. This developed to the point where they drilled the thread from the middle, threaded them with slings, and used them in cracks.

In 1972, when clean climbing became an issue in the US, Yvon Chouinard began manufacturing chocks made specifically for rock climbing, with the familiar wedge shape still in use today. With Tom Frost, Chouinard invented a larger, six-sided nut called a Hexentric or hex. Prominent climbers like Henry Barber and John Stannard helped popularize the use of nuts, especially after it was discovered that a nut was lighter and easier to place and remove while climbing, as well as being at least as secure as a well-placed piton, and less damaging to the rock.

Nuts are available in different shapes to help the climber find the best fit for a given crack. Curved nuts have a concave face on one side and a convex face on the other. Larger nuts can be placed in either of two aspects (hexes in three aspects) to suit different-width cracks, with either the main faces or the sides in contact with the rock.

Nuts may be generically referred to as wires or stoppers, though "Stopper" is a brand name of a nut made by Black Diamond Equipment.

A nut, on a stringed musical instrument, is a small piece of hard material that supports the strings at the end closest to the headstock or scroll. The nut marks one end of the vibrating length of each open string, sets the spacing of the strings across the neck, and usually holds the strings at the proper height from the fingerboard. Along with the bridge, the nut defines the vibrating lengths (scale lengths) of the open strings.

Image:Violin_Nut_1.jpg| Violin Image:Mandolin_nut.jpg| Mandolin Image:Guitar_nut.jpg| Guitar Image:Qian Jin.jpg| Erhu Music Man Bongo 5 Head Front.jpg|Compensated nut on Music Man Bongo 5 bass guitar

The nut may be made of ebony, ivory, cow bone, brass, Corian or plastic, and is usually notched or grooved for the strings. The grooves are designed to lead the string from the fingerboard to the headstock or pegbox in a smooth curve, to prevent damage to the strings or their windings. Bowed string instruments in particular benefit from an application of soft pencil graphite in the notches of the nut, to preserve the delicate flat windings of their strings.

A nut is a type of fastener with a threaded hole. Nuts are almost always used in conjunction with a mating bolt to fasten two or more parts together. The two partners are kept together by a combination of their threads' friction, a slight stretching of the bolt, and compression of the parts to be held together.

In applications where vibration or rotation may work a nut loose, various locking mechanisms may be employed: lock washers, jam nuts, specialist adhesive thread-locking fluid such as Loctite, safety pins ( split pins) or lockwire in conjunction with castellated nuts, nylon inserts ( Nyloc nut), or slightly oval-shaped threads.

The most common shape is hexagonal, for similar reasons as the bolt head - 6 sides give a good granularity of angles for a tool to approach from (good in tight spots), but more (and smaller) corners would be vulnerable to being rounded off. It takes only 1/6th of a rotation to obtain the next side of the hexagon and grip is optimal. However polygons with more than 6 sides do not give the requisite grip and polygons with fewer than 6 sides take more time to be given a complete rotation. Other specialized shapes exist for certain needs, such as wingnuts for finger adjustment and captive nuts (e.g. cage nuts) for inaccessible areas.

A wide variety of nuts exists, from household hardware versions to specialized industry-specific designs that are engineered to meet various technical standards. Fasteners used in automotive, engineering, and industrial applications usually need to be tightened to a specific torque setting, using a torque wrench. Nuts are graded with strength ratings compatible with their respective bolts; for example, an ISO property class 10 nut will be able to support the bolt proof strength load of an ISO property class 10.9 bolt without stripping. Likewise, an SAE class 5 nut can support the proof load of an SAE class 5 bolt, and so on.