walnut

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English walnot, also walnote and walnotte,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English walhhnutu, also written wealhhnutu,^[5][6][7][8] literally "foreign nut", a compound of wealh (“foreigner, Celt, Welshman”) and hnutu (“nut”).^[7][6][4][8] It goes back to Proto-Germanic *walhahnuts,^[1] and has counterparts in West Frisian walnút, Middle Dutch walnote, Dutch walnoot, Middle Low German wallnot, German Walnuss and Old Norse valhnot,^[5][6][3] as well as Swedish valnöt and Danish valnød.^[9][2] The OED notes that the single Old English record, in a glossary of about 1050, is the earliest known use of the word in any language; the word probably belonged first to the Low German area, and High German took it from Low German in the 16th century.^[5][2] Middle High German had instead wälhisch nuȥ, "Welsh nut".^[5][2] The first element, Proto-Germanic *walhaz, is the source of Welsh and Walloon;^[5][9][8] according to Ayto and Word Origins it was borrowed from Latin Volcae, the name of a Celtic people, and came to be used of Celts and then of any foreigners, including the Romans.^[9][10] The nut was so called because it came to the Germanic peoples from Gaul and Italy, as against their native hazel.^[6][3][5] Compare the walnut's name in Late Latin, nux Gallica (“Gaulish nut”),^[6][2] which the OED takes as a translation of the Germanic word, the source of the northern Old French noix gauge.^[5][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The nut of the walnut tree: in an Old English glossary of the 11th century, which glosses Latin nux as "nut tree or walnut".^[5][8] Barnhart dates the Old English word to about 1050 and the Middle English walnotte to 1358–59.^[3][12]

Semantic evolution

The word is far older in English than the tree in England: according to Merriam-Webster's Word Histories, the walnut is not recorded there with certainty until the 16th century.^[8] From the nut the name passed to the tree, first as walnut tree (about 1400) and on its own from 1600, in Fairfax's translation of Tasso.^[6][5] The wood of the tree is a walnut from before 1585, and colloquially in the 19th century to shoulder walnut, from the wooden gun-stock, meant to enlist as a soldier.^[5] Walnuts eaten with wine after dinner became a set picture in the 19th century,^[5] and since 1895 the word has named the brown colour of the wood.^[5][13] Other trees with similar nuts got the name too: the cow-nut in 1553 and American species of Juglans, such as the black walnut, from 1612.^[5] In Herefordshire, Suffolk and Somerset dialect, walnuts were gathered by a walnut-brusher.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1050 – Old English walhhnutu, the walnut.^[5][3]
• 1358–59 – Middle English walnotte.^[3]
• c. 1400 – walnut tree.^[6]
• 1553 – applied to the cow-nut.^[5][13]
• a. 1585 – the wood of the walnut tree.^[5][13]
• 1600 – the tree itself.^[5][6]
• 1612 – other species of Juglans, with a defining adjective.^[5]
• 1622 – the oil pressed from walnut kernels.^[5]
• 1769 – variant of wall-knot, a sailor's knot.^[5][13]
• 1895 – the brown colour of walnut wood.^[5][13]

Meanings

Noun

1. The edible nut of a walnut tree, with a wrinkled two-lobed kernel inside a hard, wrinkled shell: She cracked a bowl of walnuts for the cake.^[11][4][5]
2. A tree of the genus Juglans, grown for its nuts and its wood, especially the English (or common) walnut and the black walnut.^[11][4][5]
3. The wood of this tree, used for furniture and panelling.^[11][5]
4. A light yellowish-brown or darker brown colour, like that of the wood.^[11][5]

Related words

• nut
• Welsh
• Walloon
• Wales
• hazelnut

Usage notes

A second, nautical walnut (1769) is a variant of wall-knot, a knot made with the strands of a rope, influenced by the name of the nut.^[5][13]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b c d e f Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)