monkey nut
1
6.1
- noun
- /ˈmʌŋki nʌt/
- UK
:
cacahuete
- As a treat, she gave her kids some monkey nuts to munch on during the picnic.
Examples
-
You barrel of monkey nuts.
-
You think the monkey nuts you give me keeps my club afloat?
-
We enjoyed roasted monkey nuts while watching the movie.
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He reached into the bowl and grabbed a handful of monkey nuts.
Synonyms
340
1.0
A small seed that grows in a pod underground and is eaten as a snack
3
8.9
A peanut in its shell that usually has two seeds
1
3.0
A small shell from the peanut plant that holds two nuts often eaten as a snack
The pod of the peanut plant that holds the edible nuts
A dry pod on the peanut plant that has two seeds you can eat
Surface Forms
Morphology
monkey + nut
The constituent 'nut' clearly signals an edible seed, so a B1 learner would likely infer this is some kind of nut; however, the modifier 'monkey' is arbitrary and does not transparently indicate 'peanut' or 'the pod of the peanut plant.' Because the specific referent (a peanut in its shell, chiefly British) is not predictable from the parts and requires regional lexical knowledge, the expression is only partially transparent.
Etymology
The noun monkey nut may come from the simple image of a monkey cracking a nut, a peanut, to eat. So today monkey nut means a 'peanut in its shell'.