walnut
/ˈwɔːlnʌt
/noun
1The large wrinkled edible seed of a deciduous tree, consisting of two halves contained within a hard shell which is enclosed in a green fruit.Roasted pecans, walnuts, or pumpkin seeds are a nice addition....
- All I remembered about the salad was Roquefort, fennel, walnuts, Burgundy-poached pears, and dried figs on the greens.
- I combined the skin chunks with toasted walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and a bit of spices.
2 (also walnut tree) The tall tree which produces walnuts, with compound leaves and valuable ornamental timber that is used chiefly in cabinetmaking and gun stocks.
- Genus Juglans, family Juglandaceae: several species, including the common (or English) walnut (J. regia).
- Then Walter Jacob described how he and his brother had constructed a Philadelphia Chippendale style high - boy from a walnut tree for the tree's owner.
- A simple cemented courtyard around the walnut tree offers five pine table and bench sets, each for six to eight people.
Origin
Late Old English walh-hnutu, from a Germanic compound meaning 'foreign nut'.
For the Anglo-Saxons and other ancient peoples of northern Europe the walnut was the ‘foreign nut’. The nut they knew was the hazelnut, and walnuts would have been exotic imports from the Roman world of the south. The wal- part comes from Volcae, the Latin name for a particular Celtic tribe that the Germanic peoples came to use for all Celts (it is where Welsh (Old English) and Wales come from) and eventually for anyone not of Germanic stock.