Large, hard-shelled seed, usually coming from a tree.
Any dry, single-seeded fruit that does not split open to release the seed, such as the chestnut. A nut is formed from more than one carpel, but only one seed becomes fully formed, the remainder aborting. The wall of the fruit, the pericarp, becomes hard and woody, forming the outer shell.
Examples of true nuts are the acorn and hazelnut. The term also describes various hard-shelled fruits and seeds, including almonds and walnuts, which are really the stones of drupes, and brazil nuts and shelled peanuts, which are seeds. The kernels of most nuts provide a concentrated, nutritious food, containing vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, about 50% fat, and 10–20% protein, although a few, such as chestnuts, are high in carbohydrates and have only a moderate protein content of 5%. Nuts also provide edible and industrial oils. Most nuts are produced by perennial trees and shrubs. Whereas the majority of nuts are obtained from plantations, considerable quantities of pecans and brazil nuts are still collected from the wild. World production in the mid-1980s was about 4 million metric tons per year. + prikaži više

ETYM Old Eng. walnot, AS. wealh-hnutu a Welsh or foreign nut, a walnut.
Genus Juglans of trees of the family Juglandaceae, closely related to hickories. Walnuts have pinnately compound leaves and nuts enclosed in a thick leathery husk. Six species, including the black walnut J. nigra and the butternut J. cinerea, are native to the US. About 15 other species occur in South America and Eurasia. The English walnut J. regia, originally from SE Europe and Asia, is cultivated widely for its nut crop.
1. Any of various trees of the genus Juglans; SYN. walnut tree.
2. Hard dark-brown wood of any of various walnut trees; used especially for furniture and paneling.
3. Nut of any of various walnut trees having a wrinkled two-lobed seed with a hard shell. + prikaži više