Noun

The most essential part; the main idea or substance (of a longer or more complicated matter); the crux of a matter

* 1948 , , Remembrance Rock , page 103,

"Should they live and build their church in the American wilderness, their worst dangers would rise in and among themselves rather than outside. That was the gist of the lesson from their pastor and "wellwiller" John Robinson."

*

* 1996 , Nicky Silver, Etiquette and Vitriol , Theatre Communications Group 1996, p. 10:

I was really just vomiting images like spoiled sushi (that may be an ill-considered metaphor, but you get my gist ).

* 2003 , David McDuff, translating Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment , Penguin 2003 p. 183:

I don't remember his exact words, but the gist of it was that he wanted it all for nothing, as quickly as possible, without any effort.

(legal, dated) The essential ground for action in a suit, without which there is no cause of action.

(obsolete) Resting place (especially of animals), lodging.

* 1601 , (Philemon Holland)'s translation of (w, Pliny's Natural History) , 1st ed., book X, chapter XXIII “Of Swallowes, Ousles, or Merles, Thrushes, Stares or Sterlings, Turtles, and Stockdoves.”, p. 282:

These Quailes have their set gists', to wit, ordinarie resting and baiting places. [These quails have their set ' gists , to wit, ordinary resting and baiting places.]

Noun

(en noun)

A hard-shelled seed.

There are many sort of nuts - peanuts, cashews, pistachios, Brazil nuts and more.

A fastener: a piece of metal, usually square or hexagonal in shape, with a hole through it having machined internal threads, intended to be screwed onto a bolt or other threaded shaft.

* 1998 , Brian Hingley, Furniture Repair & Refinishing - Page 95[http://books.google.com/books?id=lPYWVti6GR0C&pg=PA95&dq=bolt+%22nut+into%22&hl=en&ei=FPAWTuXGOIm08QPkl5j8Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CE0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=bolt%20%22nut%20into%22&f=false]

As the bolt tightens into the nut', it pulls the tenon on the side rail into the mortise in the bedpost and locks them together. There are also some European beds that reverse the bolt and '''nut''' by setting the ' nut into the bedpost with the bolt inserted into a slotted area in the side of the rail.

(slang) A crazy person.

He was driving his car like a nut .

(slang) The head.

* {{quote-book

, year=1960 , author= , title=(Jeeves in the Offing) , section=chapter V , passage=Let the Cream get firmly in her nut the idea that Sir Roderick Glossop was not the butler, the whole butler and nothing but the butler, and disaster, as I saw it, loomed.}}

(US, slang) Financial term for monthly expense to keep a venture running.

(US, slang) The amount of money necessary to set up some venture; set-up costs.

* 1971 , Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas , Harper Perennial (2005), page 11:

My attorney was waiting in a bar around the corner. “This won't make the nut ,” he said, “unless we have unlimited credit.”

(US, slang) A stash of money owned by an extremely rich investor, sufficient to sustain a high level of consumption if all other money is lost.

(musical instruments, lutherie) On string instruments such as guitars and violins, the small piece at the peghead end of the fingerboard that holds the strings at the proper spacing and, in most cases, the proper height.

En, a unit of measurement equal to half of the height of the type in use.

An extravagantly fashionable young man of the 1910s and 1920s.

* 1914 , (w), ‘The Dreamer’, Beasts and Superbeasts , Penguin 2000 (Complete Short Stories), p. 323:

‘You are not going to be what they call a Nut', are you?’ she inquired with some anxiety, partly with the idea that a ' Nut would be an extravagance which her sister's small household would scarcely be justified in incurring [...].

(vulgar, slang, rarely used in the singular) A testicle.

I kicked him in the nuts .

(vulgar, slang) Semen, ejaculate.

An extreme enthusiast.

a fashion nut

a gun nut

a sailing nut

(climbing) A shaped piece of metal, threaded by a wire loop, which is jammed in a crack in the rockface and used to protect a climb. (Originally, machine nuts [sense #2] were used for this purpose.)

* 2005 , Tony Lourens, Guide to climbing page 88

When placing nuts', always look for constrictions within the crack, behind which the ' nut can be wedged.

(poker, only in attributive use) Relating to the , the best possible hand on a given board.

a nut''' hand; a '''nut flush

The tumbler of a gunlock.

(Knight)

(nautical) A projection on each side of the shank of an anchor, to secure the stock in place.