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

tagua

vsapple nut

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

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

vegetable ivory

vsapple nut

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

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.