Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Aus.) a small, compact, stocky animal or person, a runt.

1852		G.C. Mundy Antipodes III 322: The word nugget among farmers, signifies a small compact beast—a runt.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 16 Mar. 2/3: Pity she could not grow upwards a bit more and crossways a bit less. Still [...] I have seen many a 16-year-old ‘nugget’ transformed into a 20-year-old lily.
1911		E. Dyson ‘The Truculent Boy’ in Benno and Some of the Push 46: Nipper Creegan was a nugget of a boy, short, but stoutly built, tough and ugly.
1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 36: nugget — A short soldier.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 211: Nugget, A: A short man.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 50: Nugget, a small, weedy horse or other animal. (2) A small stocky man.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 236/2: nugget – a no-good horse.
1997–2002		Hope College ‘Dict. of New Terms’ 🌐 nugget n. Can be used to describe anything that is smaller than usual.
2015		N. Cummins Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] I was playing out wide wide next to a short stocky bloke [...] I noticed the nugget seemed to have wobbly legs.

2. in pl., money.

1875		T. Frost Circus Life and Circus Celebrities 284: One of those who used to get their fifty or sixty pounds a week at the Alhambra, or who has had nuggets thrown to him.
1889		‘’Arry in Switzerland’ in Punch 5 Dec. in P. Marks (2006) 98: Keep check on the nuggets you spend.
1905		Bluefield Daily Tel. (WV) 11 Mar. 4/2: In addition [...] the following [names for money] are given: [...] Nuggets.

3. (Aus.) a very attractive woman.

1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 810: since ca. 1925.
1998		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 4: nuggett – very attractive woman of any age.

4. (US, also gold nuggets) in pl., the testicles.

1963		T. Doulis Path for Our Valour 234: ‘I’m freezing my nuggets off,’ the voice said. ‘You ain’t got no nuggets to speak of.’.
1977		J. Sayles Union Dues (1978) 281: A regular Sonny Liston prefight hoodoo glare that would sizzle your average bleeding-heart radical’s nuggets to a crisp.
1995		L. Stavsky et al. A2Z 43/2: The honey kicked him in the gold nuggets.
2002		‘Bootscooter’ August Moone 9:28 🌐 Samantha, though, was the draw for Andy. There was something about her that churned his nuggets.

5. in pl., the female nipples.

1979

Frank Zappa ‘Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt’ 🎵 ’N all of the fellas / They wish they could bite / On the cute little nuggets / The local girls are showin’ off tonite.

6. (US) a quadriplegic.

2003

Urban Dict. 1 July 🌐 nugget: a person with no arms or l;egs.

7. in drug uses.

8. (orig. US campus) a fool, an idiot [synon. with bonehead n.¹ (1), lunkhead n. and similar terms that equate hardness (of head) with stupidity].

1989		P. Munro Sl. U.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 219: You’re in London on serious business, not to go on manouevres with these two nuggets.