chestnut

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈt͡ʃɛs(t)nʌt/ (UK); /ˈt͡ʃɛs(t)ˌnʌt/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

Formed from chesten nut (1519),^[2][3] from inherited from Middle English chesteine and nut,^[4][2][3][5] borrowed from Old French chastaigne,^[4][2][3] from Latin castanea (“chestnut, chestnut tree”),^{[4][2][3][5][6]} from Ancient Greek καστανέα (kastanéa, “chestnut tree”).^[4][2][3][5] The Greeks explained it as “nut from Castana” or “from Castanea”, place names, but these are probably named after the trees,^[3] and the word is probably borrowed from a language of Asia Minor (compare Armenian kask “chestnut”).^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The edible nut of the chestnut tree (1519).^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

The name passed to the tree (1578) and its wood (1823),^[7] and to the reddish-brown colour, as an adjective by 1555 and a noun from the 1650s.^[5][3] It was applied to the horse chestnut from 1832^[7][3] and to the hard knob on the inside of a horse's foreleg (1859).^[7] The slang sense “old, often-repeated joke” is from 1885 in the United States;^[3] the actor Joseph Jefferson traced it to a scene in the 1816 melodrama The Broken Sword in which a character keeps retelling a story involving a chestnut tree.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – Middle English chesteine.^[2]
• 1519 – chesten nut, the nut.^[7][2]
• 1555 – adjective, chestnut-coloured.^[5]
• 1578 – the tree.^[7]
• 1832 – the horse chestnut.^[7][3]
• 1859 – the knob on a horse's leg.^[7]
• 1885 – an old, stale joke.^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Any of several deciduous trees of the genus Castanea, of the beech family, with toothed leaves and nuts enclosed in a prickly bur.
2. The often edible nut of such a tree.
3. The wood of such a tree.
4. Any of several similar plants, such as the horse chestnut.
5. A moderate to deep reddish-brown colour; also, a horse of this colour.
6. A small hard callus on the inner side of a horse's foreleg.
7. An old, often repeated joke or story.

Adjective

1. Of a moderate to deep reddish-brown colour.

Word family

• chestnutty
• chestnut blight

Related words

• castanet
• horse chestnut
• water chestnut

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press