Chestnut
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Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
chestnut¹
- /ˈt͡ʃɛs(t)nʌt/ UK
- /ˈt͡ʃɛs(t)ˌnʌt/ US
Rhymes with -ɛsnʌt, -ɛstnʌt
Where it comes from
The noun is a contraction of chest(en) (“(obsolete) chestnut tree; fruit of this tree, chestnut”) + nut. Chesten is a late variant of chesteine (obsolete), from Middle English chesten, chesteine, chasteine, chesteyne (“chestnut tree (Castanea sativa); fruit of this tree; wood of this tree”), from Old French chastaigne, chastaine (French châtaigne), from Latin castanea (“chestnut tree; fruit of this tree”) (whence Old English ċisten), from Ancient Greek κᾰστᾰ́νειᾰ (kăstắneiă), a variant of κᾰ́στᾰνᾰ (kắstănă, “sweet chestnut”); for further etymology, see that entry. Doublet of castanet.
Noun sense 4 (“joke, phrase, etc., which has been repeated so often as to have grown ineffective or tiresome”) may refer to an 1816 play, The Broken Sword, by William Dimond (1781 – c. 1837), in which one character begins to relate a story in which a boy slips down from a cork tree, and another interrupts him to say that he had previously repeated the story many times, and always mentioned a chestnut tree.
The adjective is probably from an attributive use of the noun; compare French (of hair) châtain (“chestnut”) (from châtaigne (“a chestnut”)) and marron (“brown”) (from marron (“a horse chestnut or chestnut”)).
noun chestnuts · chesnut
- An edible nut (technically a fruit) of the Spanish chestnut or sweet chestnut tree (Castanea sativa); also (chiefly preceded by a descriptive word), a nut from a related shrub or tree; or a similar nut from an unrelated plant. Of trouth the cheſtain trees brynge forth the ſoft ſwete cheſtnutte out of the ſharpe pricking ⁊ hard huſke.
- In full chestnut tree: the shrub or tree that bears this nut, the Spanish chestnut or sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa); also (chiefly preceded by a descriptive word), a shrub or tree of the genus Castanea. The Cheſnut delighteth in ſhadowie places and mountaynes whoſe ſituation is towardes the North.
- Wood of a chestnut tree.
- Short for horse chestnut (“any of several tree species of the genus Aesculus, especially Aesculus hippocastanum; the fruit of such a tree”).horse chestnut And those three chestnuts near, that hung / In masses thick with milky cones.
- A dark, reddish-brown colour, like that of chestnut fruit (noun sense 1). Roſ[alind]. I'faith his haire is of a good colour. / Cel[ia]. An excellent colour: / Your Cheſſnut vvas euer the onely colour: […]
- A horse with a reddish-brown coat, mane and tail. [T]he noble Vice-President of the Club, Lord Carington […] led the way with his chestnuts, having a distinguished brother whip, Lord Londesborough, by his side.
- An oval or round horny plate located on the inner side of the leg of a horse or other equines, which is thought by some people to correspond with the thumbnail of other animals.
- Chiefly in old chestnut: a joke, meme, phrase, ploy, etc. which has been repeated so often as to have grown ineffective or tiresome; a cliché. UNIQUE II Break My Stride […] Yep, this is a dance-leaning cover of the Matthew Wilder '80s pop chestnut. It has already saturated radio airwaves throughout Europe, with a number of programmers here already giving it positive feedback.
adjective
- Of a deep reddish-brown colour, like that of a chestnut fruit (noun sense 1). chestnut hair
Chestnut²
proper noun Chestnuts
- A surname. And not to rub salt in wounds, when it comes to making mincemeat of the competition, American Joey Chestnut is still top banana.
