nut n.1
1. in senses meaning ‘head’.
(a) (also top nut) the head of the penis.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Thesavrvs n.p.: Glans, ... the foreparte or nutte of a mans yerde. | |
| (trans.) Rabelais III 2: [It] hardens the Nut, and rectifies that Member. | |
| Fifteen Real Comforts of Matrimony 101: The Surgeon that boasted that he had Nuts of Priapus’s anow (the spoils of venereal Combats) to button a Leaguer-Cloak, gives a woman sufficient warning to be careful of her husbands ware. | |
| Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Shanker, a little Scab or Pox on the Nut or Glans of the Yard. | |
 | A Voyage to Lethe 6: Its figure towards the end is in the form of a large nut; and there is an aqueduct through it that terminates in a jette d’Eau. | |
| Plain directions, &c. for the cure of the venereal disease n.p.: CHAP. IV. Cure of the false Clap, or virulent discharge of Matter from the Nut of the Yard. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | in Order of the Beggar's Benison and Merryland (1892) 33: The skin or hood which covers the nut or glans is the prepuce or foreskin. | |
| Randiana at asstr.org 🌐 Ch. xviii: Drawing back my foreskin until my best friend’s top nut stood out like a glistening globe. | |
| Green Girls 22: She spread her buttocks, and widening her bumhole with her fingers, his nut slipped in. | |
| Nocturnal Meeting 16: She [...] hollowed her hand, and held it over the nut. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | in Erotic Muse (1992) 88: She rolled her gut against my nut / And told me not to mind her. | |
| ‘Big Ego’s’ 🎵 Take yo’ honey and cruise to the snootiest snooze, Cabos / Pop coochie til the nut oozes. | |
| ‘Choppin’ Blades’ 🎵 Some nut-suckin’ hoes, I mean some dick-suckin’ pros. |
(b) the head.
| New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: mill his nott break his head. | |
| Bell’s Life in London 22 Apr. 4/5: He contrived to hit Donovan heavily [...] closing his left eye and damaging his nut. | |
| London By Night I v: His doing a hornpipe on his nut upside down is the most wonderful effort of genius I ever witnessed! | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bell’s Life in Sydney 29 Oct. 3/3: They have taken it especially into their ‘nuts’ to plague their neighbours. | |
| N.Y. Clipper n.p.: The back of poor Ned’s nut came in violent contact with mother earth. | |
| Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) I 118: He told Verdant, that his claret had been repeatedly tapped, [...] his nut spanked, and his whole person put in chancery, stung, bruised, fibbed, propped, fiddled, slogged, and otherwise ill-treated. | |
| Trail of the Serpent 60: ‘Will you have the kindness to explain what you mean by the prisoner having ‘a loose slate?’ ‘A tile off. Something wrong about the roof – the garret – the upper story – the nut.’. | |
| ‘Autobiog. of a Thief’ in Macmillan’s Mag. (London) XL 501: Then he rammed my nut (head) against the wall and shook the very life out of me. | |
| Lantern (N.O.) 11 June 4: The Mayor got it into his nut that it was useless. | |
| ‘Gunga Din’ in Barrack-Room Ballads (1893) 164: If we charged or broke or cut / You could bet your bloomin’ nut / ’E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 28 Jan. 4/5: When he fired, however, he always missed the cocoanut, but he never missed his wife’s ‘nut’. | |
| Barkeep Stories 86: ‘[B]ein’ afraid I was goin’ t’ break me nut open agin de pavin’ blocks every time I has to dodge a bread wagon’. | |
| Pitcher in Paradise 207: Paddy [...] would rub his nut well into the other fellow’s mouth. | |
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 138: Git a little sense intuh yer nut. | |
| Daily Trib. (Bismarck, ND) 7 Jan. 8/6: ‘He started by giving me a biff on the nut.’ [London Answers]. | |
| diary 30 Dec. 🌐 Marriott slipped and split his head [...] Had he not been blessed with an extraordinary thick skull, he would have most assuredly fractured his nut! | |
| [perf. Hary Champion] ‘Everybody knows me in my old brown hat’ 🎵 It only cast me a tanner down the cut / But it looks alright on my little wooden nut. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Plough and the Stars Act II: Feel that dint in th’ middle o’ me nut! | |
| Here’s Luck 167: ‘What put that horrible idea into your nut, Jack?’ . | |
| (con. 1910s) Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 137: A Jew had more grey matter in one little corner of his nut than an Irishman. | |
| Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 37: Don’t turn your nut Davis, I want to talk to you. | |
| Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 6: Knut: Head. | |
| Mating Season 16: They can’t get it into their nuts that the modern actor is a substantial citizen. | |
| Und. Nights 38: While the commissionaire’s nut was turned, Harry shot inside. | |
| (con. 1948–52) Virgin Soldiers 16: He’s got a blockage. Up here, in his nut. | |
| Start in Life (1979) 121: Bill [...] poked his nut out of the gaping windowless window. | |
| Revolting Rhymes n.p.: Off with her nut! Off with her nut! | |
| Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 74: For a minute there it looked like Big Oscar might cop a dong on the nut. | |
| Filth 3: Now I’m sitting with a bad nut and Toal’s thriving on this. | |
| Layer Cake 34: It used to go round and around in my nut. | |
| Young Team 88: The thought ae actually listenin [...] fries ma nut. |
(c) brains, intelligence.
| Maison De Shine 66: Ain’t you got any nut? | |
| Enemy to Society 37: You’re young and you’ve got a good nut on you and nuthin’ agin you. | |
| Professor How Could You! 148: Of course the poor fish (demented person) ought to be in some good booby-hatch (hoosegow) where the nut-sharps (alienists) could watch him. | |
| Big Con 143: You’ve got to have your nut about you all the time. |
(d) the head, as used to butt someone in a fight.
| (con. 1940s) Borstal Boy 162: Apart from the knee and the nut. | |
| Guardian 16 July 24: He loved to put the nut in. He used to do it deliberately, usually in the first round. |
(e) (Aus.) in a game of two-up, the head side of the coin.
| Lingo 150: Bets are won or lost on whether the result is two heads (skulls, nuts, neds); two tails (two micks), or one of each (ones). |
2. an action that is intended to give pleasure, something positive [the pleasant flavour of a nut or nuts n.1 (1)].
| Vocab. of the Flash Lang. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Deacon Brodie III tab.VI ii: Here’s a nut for the Crown Prosecutor! I’m a bit of a party to a robbery. |
3. with ref. to a person [ext. use of sense 1, often with an implied pun on ‘tough’, i.e. tough nut to crack].
(a) a person, a fellow .
| Cockney Adventures 10 Feb. 119: ‘Where do you expect to go to?’ ‘For a lark on the forest, to be sure, my jolly old nut.’. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 7 Jan. 7/4: [A]n invitation to ‘come around to my hotel and dine with me’ [...] accompanied by a bewitching glance [...] is sure to fetch the toughest old nut of the lot . | |
| Mord Em’ly 72: His worship says that you’re a bad nut. | |
| ‘The Protean Policeman’ Sporting Times 26 Nov. 1/3: Some ‘nuts’ from Pincher’s Alley, out for trade, / Were just holding up a toff, and clearing his ‘skyrockets’ out. | |
| ‘Extricating Young Gussie’ Man with Two Left Feet 26: The poor old nut looked at me in such a deuced cat-like way. | |
| Adventures of a Boomer Op. 37: The Nut that sat in the seat behind me in the other car, slid in beside me. | |
| ‘Double Feature’ in N.Y. Age 27 Feb. 7/1: The first chance we get we’re going to look up the nut behind the keys. | |
| From Here to Eternity (1998) 800: Who the hell would listen to an old nut like Ike. | |
| Night to Make the Angels Weep (1967) II xii: Oh. Caulibloodyflowers, you’re a funny nut. | |
| Thief 197: I just had to get another hinge at this lawyer-nut. | |
| (con. 1930s) Emerald Square 278: We were, twice a week, turned over to another nut, where I learnt about the Doric order and the Corinthian order. |
(b) a daredevil.
| Austral Eng. 324/2: Nut, n. (2) Dare-devil, etc. ‘Tommy the Nut’ was the alias of the prisoner who, according to the story, was first described as ‘a larrikin’ by Sergeant Dalton. | |
| Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 104: NUT: slang a hard case, a wit, or tough character. | |
| in Heller In This Corner (1974) 237: I was just thinking what a nut I was. |
(c) see knut n.
4. (Aus.) a horse that is hard to break in [abbr. hard nut n.].
| Singleton Argus (NSW) 22 Dec. 1/3: Witness knew the horse was a ‘bit of a nut,’ and hot tempered; he had been tackled about two months ago, but had to be let off, as he crippled himself. | |
| Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. |
5. with ref. to money [SE nut, as being the heart of the fruit; such money is at the heart of a project, a relationship etc.].
(a) (US, orig. entertainment) the initial outlay, overheads, expenses; the break-even sum, as in a theatre production or film, after which profit starts.
| Mr. Jackson 51: He’s there wit’ the nut to fix up a minin’ graft. | |
| Confessions of a Con Man 81: The ‘nut’ [...] is the general term, among gamblers, for the expense account. | |
| Vocab. Criminal Sl. 62: nut [...] used by grafters whose operations involve an investment to signify an expense incurred in connection with a venture. Example: ‘The grift was punk; we were framed five strong and never got the nut off.’. | |
| On Broadway 3 Sept. [synd. col.] Warners [...] cut its staff in half to ‘keep down the nut’. | |
| ‘Casual Obersver’ in Charlotte Obs. (NC) 24 Feb. 8/7: Hire a bevy of Broadway Broads and frame a girl show [but] the nut would be better than two grand a week. | |
| (con. 1905–25) Professional Thief (1956) 35: The nut (expenses) must come off the top of every touch. | |
| 15 Mar. [synd. col.] A nut, in his language, doesn’t grow on trees at all. It’s the operating expense of an enterprise, a concession at some joint. | |
| Parole Chief 263: ‘The nut comes off the top’ is saying among the brethren. When stolen articles are cashed in all expenses must be taken care of before the cut is made. | |
| Pimp 264: With my pad rent and a pad apiece for the girls I needed [...] to cut down my nut. | |
| Airtight Willie and Me 201: His weekly nut for stable logistics and his own support [...] was close to five grand. | |
| Lowspeak 106: Nut – the expenses incurred by thieves whilst setting up and carrying out a theft. | |
| Night Gardener 22: He had no nut beyond the taxes and utilities. | |
| ‘Carny Lingo’ in http://goodmagic.com 🌐 Nut — The ‘overhead,’ or operating expenses of a show or a joint. |
(b) (US) any required sum, a pay-off.
| Wash. Times (DC) 14 Sept. 10/4: Nut – Credit. | |
| ‘Casual Obersver’ in Charlotte Obs. (NC) 24 Feb. 8/8: Bert Kelly’s Stables, where the total nut for a party of 30 came to $3.30...Bert charged for cigarettes only. | |
| ‘Und. “Lingo” Brought Up-to-Date’ L.A. Times 8 Nov. K16: NUT: A debt; the cost; credit. | |
| Cry Tough! 59: But what sort of a nut was fourteen hundred bucks in 1947? Nothing more than a whisper in a strong wind. | |
| Man Who Was Not With It (1965) 183: We were leaving the show tomorrow for a week, planning to spend a good part of our nut [...] taking a vacation. | |
| Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 121: I’m not studying no oil-burner of a habit and a hundred-dollar nut every day. | |
| Digger’s Game (1981) 98: They pay off the whole nut. | |
| Goodfellas [film script] 81: It’s once in a lifetime. We’ll be rich. No more nut every week. | |
| Homeboy 13: Joe pimped her [...] to make up the nut when he shot more dope than he could sell. | |
| (con. 1973) Johnny Porno 45: His window-cleaning salary wouldn’t come anywhere near covering his gambling nut. | |
| Boy from County Hell 245: ‘That’s a big nut’. |
(c) (US Und.) a single corrupt policeman’s share of the protection money paid into a (bi-weekly/monthly) pad n.5 (1)
| Knapp Commision Summary Aug. 1: Plainclothesmen, participating in what is known in police parlance as a ‘pad,’ collected regular bi-weekly or monthly payments [...] The monthly share per man (called the ‘nut’) ranged from $300 and $400 in midtown Manhattan to $1,500 in Harlem. | |
| Giveadamn Brown (1997) 43: ‘If you want a payoff, go see them. I’m not getting up any more than my usual weekly nut’. | |
| Lowspeak 106: Nut [...] 2. a bribe given to a public official. | |
| They Wished They Were Honest 189: On the map, next to each division, was the amount of the ‘nut’ that Phillips had ascribed to that division—what each plainclothesman got each month as his share of the graft. |
(d) the sum of money actually borrowed, as opposed to the interest that accrues on it.
| Digger’s Game (1981) 65: That’s either vig plus sixteen off the nut, or it’s five weeks to raise the eighteen. | |
| Lowspeak 106: Nut [...] 3. the principal sum loaned by a loan shark. |
(e) (US) a profit.
| Gutshot Straight [ebook] ‘International marriage business. Crazy money, and it’s just going to get crazier and crazier [...] The website fees alone triple my nut’. |
In compounds
(N.Z. prison) a skinhead.
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 125/2: nude nut n. a skinhead. |
see separate entry.
see separate entries.
(Aus.) one who deliberately ignores a friend in the street.
| ‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxvi 4/2: nut ducker: One who avoids persons he is obliged to. To duck one’s nut is to hide the head. | |
| ‘OzSlang’ at austarmetro.com.au 🌐 NUT DUCKER Person who pretends not to see you in the street! |
a weapon, prob. a bludgeon.
| late 17C ballad quoted in Sporting World 19 Apr. 49/2: All my learning I got at St Giles’s pound / Where the nut-hook they taught me to handle quick. |
a head-butt.
| Gutted 189: A head butt was aimed at me [...] There’s only one way to deal with a nut job. I dropped my own head. |
a hat.
| Flash Mirror 20: F. Felt’s swell tile and nob-thatching warehouse, where is daily on sale [...] rummy sconsers, cannister kivers, and nut toppers of every sort. |
(Aus.) one who works out ways of avoiding hard work; thus ext. as a white-collar worker.
| Aussie (France) IX Dec. 23/1: The best nut-worker sometimes comes a gutzer. | |
| (con. WWI) Soldier and Sailor Words 212: NUTWORKER, a: a Shirker. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 236/2: nut worker – a person who uses his head to avoid hard work. |
In phrases
to become furious.
| in A Minority 173: He’d blow his nut. |
to lose one’s temper, to lose emotional control, to get worked up.
| Sport (Adelaide) 7 Mar. 5/2: The heads have done their nuts over a strange girl here. Who is it, boys? | |
| Aussie (France) VII Sept. 7/1: Then Dinkum fell in love. It was the joke of the Batt. Dinkum had done his nut on a Tabby! | |
| (con. WWI) Soldier and Sailor Words 79: Do One’s Nut, To: To lose one’s head. | |
| Mirror (Perth) 6 Nov. 12/3: I’m sorry if I did my nut, Your Honor. | |
| They Drive by Night 24: Anyone who watched him might think that he’d done his nut or something the way he was going on. | |
| Long and the Short and the Tall Act I: Hello! Our little blue-eyed signaller doing his nut now. | |
| Mersey Beat 20 June–4 July n.p.: The Beatles did their nuts because Stu was playing with us. | |
| Snake 275: He’ll also do his nut! | |
| ‘Jobs for the Boys’ in Boys from the Blackstuff (1985) [TV script] 69: Snowy’ll do his bleedin’ nut when he sees that. | |
| Filth 262: Toal’s doing his nut at me. | |
| (con. 1980s) Skagboys 9: Better no have [a girlfriend], or that wee Hazel’ll be daein’ her nut. |
to drive someone mad.
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Cold Stone Jug (1981) II 129: ‘Who has done in his nut?’ one convict asked (quite a creditable piece of prison slang, incidentally, for a first offender). | |
| (con. 1980s) Skagboys 211: This crowd in here are startin tae dae my nut in. |
1. see below nod the nut
2. see duck v.1 (2)
(UK Und.) to get a sight of.
| Raiders 7: It was easy to blend in [to the crowd] and get a good nut at the security guards’ routines. |
to tease, to ‘wind up’.
| Layer Cake 15: Mortimer loves all that dramatic fuck-about, getting your nut. |
to go mad, to lose emotional control.
| Dagonet Ballads 76: It’s all very well for the rich [...] to go off their nuts about ladies as dies for young fellers as fights. | |
![[Ind]](/static/img/flags/ind.png "India") | ‘Adoration of the Mage’ in Civil & Military Gaz. 25 Jan. (1909) 229: In the old days, before he went off his chump [...] — went off his nut. | |
| Hawaii Holomua Progress 30 Apr. 2/1: Off His Nut. The editor of the Advertiser tries [...] to manipulate the registration figures. | |
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 110: The boss’ll go off his nut. | |
| Torchy 239: But while he can get as hot under the collar as anyone [...] he don’t go clear off his nut any of the time. | |
| letter in Phillips, Boyack & Malone Great Adventure (1988) 10 Nov. 163: I think I should go clean off my nut if a day should pass without a word from you. | |
| Day Book (Chicago) 4 May 6/2: Right there Pierce flew off his nut [...] Angered he deliberately threw his bat. | |
| Put on the Spot 18: He goes off his simple nut. He forgets who he is. | |
| (con. WWI) Flesh in Armour 299: Their apprehension, that Johnny had suddently gone off his nut. | |
| Sexus (1969) 136: I’d go off my nut if I looked at things with a clear eye. | |
| Sundowners 240: Look at him. You’d think he was ready to go off his nut. | |
| Boss of Britain’s Underworld 136: When I returned to Bovingdon the Commy was going off his nut. | |
| Guntz 16: It was generally thought around the manor that I must have gone off my nut. | |
| Foetal Attraction (1994) 144: Don’t go off your nut. | |
| ‘Topless Vampire Bitches’ in C. Rhatigan and N. Bird (eds) Pulp Ink 2 [ebook] All sorts of rumors flyin’ around that he’d gone off his nut. |
to lose emotional control; to act without thinking.
| ‘Mulberry Mary’ in Sandburrs 9: So when Billy sees Mary at Connorses spiel, like I say, she’s such a bute he loses his nut. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Dec. 14/1: Locket lost his nut in the hour of need, and, instead of swarming the fence, turned and fled along it, with streaming whiskers and projecting eyes. | |
| ‘Could I? I Certainly Could!’ 🎵 No more will I lose my nut / Over movie stars, sheiks in Packard cars, / I hate all the men! | |
| ‘Butch Minds the Baby’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 352: He loses his nut, and he outs with the old equalizer. | |
| Robbers (2001) 201: The guy’d lost his nut. |
(US) to achieve a target, to have a sufficiency.
| et al. DAUL 135/1: Make the nut. To clear expenses and show a profit on a transaction. | |
| Hell’s Angels (1967) 191: We were received in camp with cheers and shouting. Our eight cases made the nut. | |
| (con. 1945) Tattoo (1977) 335: There was the anxious eagerness of enterprise that had yet to make its nut. |
1. (Aus./N.Z., also duck the nut, ...the scone, ...the skull, give it the nod, nod one’s head, ...the head, ...the scone, ...the skull) to plead guilty.
| [ | | Eve. News (Sydney) 20 Apr. 4/6: It is the almost invariable custom of the denizens, of the dock at the City Police Courts simply to nod the head when pleading guiltyn to an offence, which bow of obeisance is always perfectly well understood by the officer in charge of the court]. |
| Sun. Mail (Brisbane) 13 Nov. 20/8: Once he is arrested a criminal signifies his intention of pleading guilty, if he should decide to do so, by ‘ducking his nut’. | |
| Wkly Times (Melbourne) 7 May 21/5: ‘How many have you against me? Get them all on at once and I will probably nod the head (plead guilty)’. | |
| Age (Melbourne) 19 Aug. 13/5: When Senior Constable Jackson said; ‘Supposing we cut the charge down to being unlawfully on the premises, would you ‘nod the nut’’ He replied that he would not. | |
| Shepparton Advertiser (Vic.) 30 Aug. 4/4: Later witness was called to the cell by Molone who said ‘I think I’ll nod the head to it,’ He was then taken to the office where he said he would take the blame for the house-breaking. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 23 June 22/3: Det.-Sgt. F, Lynch, at Quarter Sessions: The accused said he would nod the head. Mr. Harold Munro: You mean ‘Duck the Nut,’ ‘Duck the Scone,’ plead guilty? Det.-Sgt. Lynch: Yes . | |
| Cessnock Eagle (NSW) 4 Oct. 4/2: They took a picture to identify me. / Then forty demons said ‘just nod your head and you’ll be free’ / So I pleaded ‘Guilty’ just like a ‘gay’ / Now I’m a boarder out at Long Bay. | |
| News (Adelaide) 1 July 5/3: ‘He wants to jack up, but his mouthpiece drums him to nod the nut, and he cops the clock in boob’ . | |
| Examiner (Launceston, Tas.) 4 Sept. 6/4: Farrell had also said, ‘If you don’t lock me up at the week-end I’ll come back on Monday and ‘nod the scone’’ That phrase, Det. Duncan said, usually meant plead guilty. | |
| Morn. Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 7 Dec. 5/2: Detective Dux said that when the defendant was charged he said, ‘A man missed badly, didn’t he? But I nearly got away with it. But I won’t nod the head; I’ll give you a run for it’. | |
| ‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxvi 4/2: nod the nut: Plead guilty, nod the noodle up and down that you did it. | |
| He who Shoots Last 140: Well, dey sez I done it and wuz gonna do a stretch fer it, but I sez I ain’t gonna nod me head. | |
| Canberra Times (ACT) 28 Oct. 40/1: Leslie Edward Lewis had ‘flicked’ a note to him in prison which read, ‘10 big ones to nod your head or know anyone who will, OK’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Apr. 44: ‘Nod your nut. Pig?’ ‘No chance. The jacks gave me a nice load and tidied me up with verbal for desert. No way I’ll get my head down to a load.’. | |
| Big Huey 251: nod (n) e.g., Give it the –. Plead guilty. | |
| Copspeak 1 23: Duck the Nut: Same as nod the ‘scone’, ‘the head’, ‘skull’ etc., to plead guilty. |
2. (Aus., also nod one’s head) to place a bet with a bookmaker on credit.
| Nat. Advocate (Bathurst) 5 Sept. 3/4: Supposing a bookmaker was calling out ‘2 to 1 Pericles,’ and you nodded your head, what would the bookmaker put down. Would he book you £100 to £50, or £20 to £10, or what would he do . | |
| Age (Melbourne) 12 July 7/8: Accused had been fortunate in striking ‘Tatt’s’ for £3000. But he had lost it all at the races by a nod of his head to the bookmakers. (Laughter.) ‘Perhaps the bench does not understand,’ he added. ‘You go to the racecourse, and nod your head to the bookmakers, but sometimes you nod your head too much. | |
| Truth (Perth) 30 Dec. 2/1: When Alf. Levy [...] ‘nodded his nut’ with Eddie Oates for a £200 bet to win £160, the race looked a foregone conclusion. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 25 Feb. 5/2: His seventh at the finish shouldn’t encourage Ned Moss to plonk too much of the roll on him next time. Ned nodded the nut till the son of Valaas was favorite on Saturday. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 3 Dec. 5/7: At this price the money was shovelled on, however, and the bulk of it did not come from cash punters either. Men who ‘nod the nut’ did the business. In one fielder’s ledger only two cash bets appeared in a string of bets. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 9 Oct. 3/4: When that race comes due you can roll up the sleeves, get out the pencil and start nodding the nut with gay abandon. |
1. (Aus.) to think it over, to work out.
| Aussie (France) IX Dec. 5/2: Dempsey stared and glared, and swore at the thing, and tried to ‘nut it out.’. | |
| (con. WWI) in Soldier and Sailor Words. | |
| Joyful Condemned 38: A life sentence, a full hand, is fifteen years — with remissions. Just nut that out. | |
| They’re a Weird Mob (1958) 30: An’ when yer gets ter the station, turn right. No. Yer wouldn’t know how ter nut ut out. I’ll meet yer. | |
| Cop This Lot 14: ‘Wot’s this trip gunna cost?’ ‘Haven’t nutted ut out yet.’. | |
| Holy Smoke 78: These archaeology ginks had nutted it out. | |
| Rooted II i: We’ll nut it out together, me and Simmo. It’ll all be taken care of. | |
| Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 9: He took his pen and ink to a Cain and Abel and plonked himself into a Fred Astaire and tried to nut out a plan for the day. | |
| Human Torpedo 119: They sat around nutting out problems. | |
| Sucked In 153: I’ll have a chat with my electorate officer, nut out a list, have her call you back. |
2. to notice (someone).
| ‘Dread Fellow Churls’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] I’m not surprised my quarry nutted me out first, tiptoed up behind me and conked me on the skull. |
1. to attack physically; to abuse verbally.
| Prison Sl. 93: Nut on Someone To verbally abuse, intimidate, physically challenge or attack a person. |
2. (also nut up) to ignore; to be silent.
| Farm (1968) 83: I knew the guy was some kind of little prick. I nutted on him for a longtime. [Ibid.] 194: Thankfully the doctor turned and I had the chance to nut up completely. |
(US black) to go mad, whether literally or metaphorically.
| Farm (1968) 170: A lotta guys starting looking at the tops of their shoes, nutting out completely. | |
| Bad (1995) 129: The patients in the ward were just having a healthy reaction to the insane environment of the pen, by either nutting out or pretending to. | |
| Dream Bearer 128: He’s probably going to nut out. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 145: nut out To lose your temper, as in losing control of your nut or head. |
pustules indicating a case of venereal disease.
| Fifteen Real Comforts of Matrimony 97: The Surgeon that boasted that he had Nuts of Priapus enow (the spoils of venereal Combats) to button a leaguer-cloak gives a woman sufficient wearning to be careful of her husbands ware. |
used as an insult, lit. ‘fellating’.
| Great Santini (1977) 163: I hate a nut suckin’, ball swingin’, fart sniffin’ bastard worse than I hate all the Russians in the Kremlin. |
1. to lose one’s temper completely, to go berserk.
| ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 63: He’s just going to nut up when he hears that. | |
| Central Sl. 38: nutted up [...] ‘Bitch nutted up on me and threw chop-suey in my face.’. | |
| Another Day in Paradise 180: He went all the way off [...] What makes ya think he won’t nut up again. | |
| Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Nut up: Go crazy, become enraged. | |
| Pain Killers 386: He nutted up. They got him on the dink ward, puped full of Haldol. |
2. (US) to act tough.
| ‘The Proxy’ in ThugLit Sept. [ebook] He ought to nut up and remind the Neanderthal who was boss. |
1. drunk.
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn). | |
| London Standard 13 Dec. 3/3: He is all Mops and Brooms, or Off His Nut. | |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 24 Feb. 3/6: Why did the policeman arrest the run away cart-wheel? Because it was off it’s nut. | |
| Salt Lake Herald (UT) 30 Mar. 4/5: He is [...] off his nut. | |
| ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 220: off one’s nut, drunk. | |
| True Drunkard’s Delight. | |
| Lush Life 127: Last night [...] I was off my nut. Ike and that other guy were actually holding me up . |
2. mad.
| Sl. Dict. 239: Nut to be ‘off one’s NUT,’ to be crazed or idiotic. | |
| Salt Lake Herald (UT) 14 June 1/3: Rosecranz is ‘off his nut’ about the Ocean Shore Railroad; he is befogged and befooled. | |
| ‘Bail Up!’ 149: I wish I had stopped mad [...] that year I was off my nut was like one short day spent in the Mahometan’s paradise. | |
| Norfolk Wkly News (NE) 4 Jan. 2/3: ‘He’s off his nut,’ sed one man. | |
| Spoilers 37: Thank your horrible god I’m busy ’ere with this pore gel you’ve drove off her nut. | |
| Lonely Plough (1931) 226: Going clean off his nut, I reckon! | |
| Little Caesar (1932) 153: If you think you can muscle into this joint you’re off your nut. | |
| Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 193: I thought she would go off her nut completely. | |
| Caught (2001) 159: Skirt, eh? Well that’s sent many a good man off his nut. | |
| Harder They Fall (1971) 216: My bum, he’s off his nut. | |
| Crazy Kill 51 You know that preacher’s off his nut. | |
| Saved Scene ii: I wonder it never sent yer off yer nut. | |
| Ghetto Sketches 35: Are you off your nut? | |
| Secrets of Harry Bright (1986) 94: I was just off my nut for a while. | |
| Everyday Eng. and Sl. 🌐 Off your nut (v): crazy – ‘That fella’s off his nut’. | |
| Kill Your Friends (2009) 73: Off his nut on the nosebag. | |
| Young Team 5: ‘[T]he cunt is fuckin mental [...] actually off his nut’. | |
| Rules of Revelation 57: ‘[H]e was off his nut on some substance or another’. |
3. infatuated, obsessive, very enthusiastic.
| Strangers and Pilgrims I 280: There are the men who go off their nuts by the time they’re worth a million or so, and cut their throats for fear of dying in a workhouse . | |
| Eagle’s Heart 47: He considered them ‘a little off their nut’, that is to say, fanatic. | |
| Gangster Girl 130: Some good-lookin’ chippy at you to get in wit’ you till you’re off your nut over her an’ trust her, an’—bam! | |
| Great Magoo 127: He’s off his nut about me. |
4. angry.
| Shorty McCabe 148: Jarvis, he kind of colored up at that, but he didn’t go off his nut. |
(US) free from debt; into profit.
| in Life 31 July 24: He expects to be off the nut (even) by the Fair’s end. | |
| Fabulous Clipjoint (1949) 119: ‘What’s the nut?’ ‘The overhead, kid. Say your expenses on a concession run thirty bucks a day; well, you’re on the nut until you’ve taken in that much. The rest of it is profit; you’re off the nut.’. | |
| et al. DAUL 148/1: Off the nut. 1. Financially sound, all expenses having been cleared, and all future revenues to be considered as net profit; free from monetary obligations. | |
| 7th Avenue 361: Well, how does it feel to get off the nut. |
(UK Und.) on one’s own.
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 106/2: I made up my mind that if I could not find a ‘pal’ whom I could trust [...] to turn the whole of them up and ‘graft’ on my own ‘nut’. |
1. in debt, out of pocket.
| Apaches of N.Y. 142: Th’ trip [...] leaves me on the nut for twelve hundred bones. | |
| Yes Man’s Land 30: This flop had put the merry boxer on the nut for sixty thousand bucks. | |
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 138: On the Nut. – Out of funds. | |
| Fabulous Clipjoint (1949) 119: ‘What’s the nut?’ ‘The overhead, kid. Say your expenses on a concession run thirty bucks a day; well, you’re on the nut until you’ve taken in that much. The rest of it is profit; you’re off the nut.’. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| et al. DAUL 146/2: Nut, on the. In poor financial straits; compelled to draw upon one’s investment, expense, or emergency money; living on credit. | |
| ‘Konky Mohair’ in et al. Life (1976) 103: As facts are mattered, his luck was shattered, / For he was what you’d call ‘on the nut.’. | |
| Prison Sl. 15: Out in the Water In debt. (Archaic: in the barrel, in the hole, on the nut). |
2. unemployed.
| Lively Commerce 173: My old man is on the nut (out of work) and I can’t get any other job except looking at the ceiling (prostitution). |
1. crazy.
| in W.R. Burnett Best 499: I cried like I was goin’ outa my nut [HDAS]. | |
| How to Talk Dirty 156: You’re out of your nut. | |
| Blue Movie (1974) 64: You must really be outta your fucking nut! |
2. intoxicated, either through drink or, later, drugs.
| Essential Lenny Bruce 186: I’m outta my nut, man. | |
| Viva La Madness 202: Try being here at three in the morning [...] everyone outta their nut, shitfaced. |
(Irish) to headbutt.
| Long and the Short and the Tall Act I: That’s how you want them when you’re putting in the nut. Up there. Bigger than yourself. | |
| Whistle in the Dark Act I: These two English blokes – one of them putting the nut into Des. |
to hit with one’s head.
| Wanderings of a Vagabond 270: It’s themselves knows we’d put a head on ivery mother’s son ov’em if they interfare wid the divarshins o’ gentlemen. | |
| Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 7: Put a Head on One - To disfigure with the fist. | |
| Wolfman 50: For tuppence, he’d get up and stick the nut on the copper. | |
| A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 43: I stuck the nut on him and broke his nose. | |
| Locked Ward (2013) 245: He put the head on Jake and bust his snitch. |
to think, to act intelligently, to work things out.
| Capricornia (1939) 210: Use y’ nut a bit this time or you’ll get the bullet. | |
| They Drive by Night 31: All he had to do was use his nut. | |
| Look Long Upon a Monkey 51: I use me nut. | |
| Bunch of Ratbags 67: Now that’s usin’ yuh nut, Cookie. | |
| Yes We have No 278: Anyone that’s willing to use his nut [...] they can write their own ticket. |
SE in slang uses
In phrases
(US prison) to threaten or intimidate, physically and/or verbally.
| et al. DAUL 170/2: Put the nuts on. To apply pressure or force. | |
| Prison Sl. 91: Bulldoggin’ […] verbal harassment as well as a physical and or verbal intimidation […] (Archaic: put the arm on, put the nuts on). |