nub
pronunciation
How to pronounce nub in British English:
UK [nʌb]
How to pronounce nub in American English:
US [nʌb]
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- Noun:
- a small lump or protuberance
- a small piece
- the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
Word Origin
- nub (n.)
- "knob, lump, bump," 1590s, variant of dialectal knub, probably a variant of knob. Figurative meaning "point, gist" first recorded 1834.
Example
- 1. The nub of the case was this question : " are isolated human genes and the comparison of their sequences patentable things ? "
- 2. The nub of this humorous piece was that when the young man came to ' call ' , he found to his astonishment that ' she had her hat on ' .
- 3. Indeed , the nub of many of the negative reviews is that , faced with the holocaust , mr tarantino avoids tricky moral issues .
- 4. Who doesn 't like to sneak a little nub of chocolate before bed to get that warm feeling inside ?
- 5. A study just published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences may help resolve this question by getting to the nub of what is going on in a bilingual child 's brain , how a second language affects the way he thinks , and thus in what circumstances being bilingual may be helpful .