apple nut

9.8

A hard white seed from a South American palm tree that people polish to make buttons

noun
/ˈæpəl nʌt/

: tagua

Many vintage coats feature apple nut buttons because of their smooth, polished look.

Examples

The artisan crafted a beautiful button from an apple nut.
The craftsman carved a necklace out of apple nut shells collected from the forest.
Before synthetics, apple nut was a popular material for making sewing accessories.
Many jewelry makers use apple nuts for their unique appearance.
Before synthetics, apple nut was a popular material for making sewing accessories.
Many vintage coats feature apple nut buttons because of their smooth, polished look.
The artisan crafted a beautiful button from an apple nut.

Synonyms

vegetable ivory

vsapple nut

1 9.6

A hard white seed from some South American palms that people use to make buttons and small carved objects

is the specific single-nut term rather than the general category

tagua

vsapple nut

1 9.9

A hard white nut used like ivory for making buttons and small carvings

is the general term for that nut used to make polished buttons

ivory nut

vsapple nut

1 8.2

A hard white seed from a South American palm used to make buttons and small objects

is the broader name used for that seed when making small objects

Surface Forms

apple nut singular

apple nuts plural

Morphology

apple + nut

The noun-noun composition signals a type of nut: a B1 learner who knows 'apple' and 'nut' would likely infer this is a particular kind of nut (i.e. a named variety). However, the precise botanical identity and the non-food use (a palm seed with a hard white shell used for buttons) are not predictable from the constituents, so the meaning is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Apple nut may come from the seed's appearance: a small, round, hard white seed that looked like a tiny apple and like a nut. People polished the shells and used them to make buttons and small items, so the name now means 'the nutlike seed' used for making objects.