chestnut
pronunciation
How to pronounce chestnut in British English:
UK [ˈtʃesnʌt]
How to pronounce chestnut in American English:
US [ˈtʃɛsˌnʌt, -nət]
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- Noun:
- wood of any of various chestnut trees of the genus Castanea
- any of several attractive deciduous trees yellow-brown in autumn; yield a hard wood and edible nuts in a prickly bur
- edible nut of any of various chestnut trees of the genus Castanea
- a small horny callus on the inner surface of a horse's leg
- a dark golden-brown or reddish-brown horse
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- Adjective:
- used of hair; of a golden brown to reddish brown color
Word Origin
- chestnut
- chestnut: [16] The Greek word for ‘chestnut’ was kastanéā, which appears to have meant originally ‘nut from Castanea’ (in Pontus, Asia Minor) or ‘nut from Castana’ (in Thessaly, Greece). It came into English via Latin castanea and Old French chastaine, which in the 14th century produced the Middle English form chasteine or chesteine. Over the next two hundred years this developed to chestern, and in due course had nut added to it to produce the modern English form. Castana, the Spanish descendant of Latin castanea, is the source of castanet.=> castanet
- chestnut (n.)
- 1560s, from chesten nut (1510s), with superfluous nut (n.) + Middle English chasteine, from Old French chastain (12c., Modern French châtaigne), from Latin castanea "chestnut, chestnut tree," from Greek kastaneia, which the Greeks thought meant either "nut from Castanea" in Pontus, or "nut from Castana" in Thessaly, but probably both places are named for the trees, not the other way around, and the word is borrowed from a language of Asia Minor (compare Armenian kask "chestnut," kaskeni "chestnut tree"). In reference to the dark reddish-brown color, 1650s. Applied to the horse-chestnut by 1832. Slang sense of "venerable joke or story" is from 1885, explained 1888 by Joseph Jefferson (see "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine," January 1888) as probably abstracted from the 1816 melodrama "The Broken Sword" by William Dimond where an oft-repeated story involving a chestnut tree figures in an exchange between the characters "Captain Zavior" and "Pablo": Zav. Let me see--ay! it is exactly six years since that peace being restored to Spain, and my ship paid off, my kind brother offered me a snug hammock in the dwelling of my forefathers. I mounted a mule at Barcelona and trotted away for my native mountains. At the dawn of the fourth day's journey, I entered the wood of Collares, when, suddenly, from the thick boughs of a cork-tree-- Pab. [Jumping up.] A chesnut, Captain, a chesnut! Zav. Bah, you booby! I say, a cork! Pab. And I swear, a chesnut. Captain, this is the twenty-seventh time I have heard you relate this story, and you invariably said, a chesnut, till now. Jefferson traced the connection through William Warren, "the veteran comedian of Boston" who often played Pablo in the melodrama.
Example
- 1. An earthy chestnut looks elegant mixed with metallic .
- 2. She knew he wanted that chestnut mare something fierce .
- 3. Sweet chestnut , stourhead , by steven drewett
- 4. Well , at least one of them had a feathered mohawk tail in a subdued palette of chestnut and white stripes .
- 5. He eventually goes mad , smashes things , refuses to speak except in latin and is tied to a giant chestnut tree in the middle of the family garden .