[This entry is taken from a chapter of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]
Eng. nut and Sp. nuez
The English word nut does not have a simple
equivalent in Spanish. For one, the word nut has several major meanings
or senses, though one is clearly primary. This primary sense is defined in the Concise
Oxford English Dictionary (COED) as ‘a fruit consisting of a hard or tough
shell around an edible kernel’. Wiktionary defines this sense more simply as ‘a
hard-shelled seed’. Other dictionaries mention that this fruit grows on (some) trees
and give examples of such nuts and of expressions containing the word nut.
The main sense is clearly the following: nuts are seeds from some trees that
are enclosed in a hard shell that does not open easily to release it (i.e., are
indehiscent), and these seeds are edible. Some of these botanical nuts
are also culinary nuts or nuts that humans consume, although most
dictionaries do not mention this. Culinary nuts are also often roasted. Some
common culinary nuts are: pine nut (Sp. piñón), cashew nut (Sp. (nuez) anacardo), hazelnut (Sp. avellana),
pecan (Sp. pecana), almond (Sp. almendra), pistachio (Sp. pistacho),
and Brazil nut (Sp. nuez del Brasil).
Some nuts are not considered to be edible by
humans, but only by animals, such as the acorn (Sp. bellota),
which is the nut of the oak tree, of which there are many varieties.[a]
The English word nut is often associated with the Spanish
word nuez, and it is indeed the case that the two words are cognate
since they descend from the same root in the ancestral Proto-Indo-European
root. But Sp. nuez means ‘walnut’ in most regular contexts, though it can
be used to translate the English word nut in the botanical context. But
Sp. nuez is avoided as a generic word for culinary nuts for the obvious
reason that it is used to refer to just such type, the walnut. This can bring
complications when talking about edible nuts in general or when translating
from or into English, as we shall see.
In addition to the main sense of nut that we just
discussed, this English word has acquired other derived senses in different
contexts. In the mechanical world, Eng. nut has acquired a very
different meaning based probably on the notion of similarity with the botanical
one, namely ‘a small flat piece of metal or other material, typically square or
hexagonal, with a threaded hole through it for screwing on to a bolt’ (COED).
This sense translates into Spanish as tuerca, the thing that attaches
itself to a perno ‘bolt’, more commonly known as tornillo, a word
that also means ‘screw’ in addition to ‘bolt’.[b]
There is another derived sense for the word nut, one that can be defined as ‘a crazy or eccentric person’, as in My brother is a nut (case), which can be translated into Spanish as chiflado/a or chalado/a, as in Mi hermano está chalado/chiflado. Common English phrases in which nut has this sense are nut-house ‘insane asylum’ (1929) and nut-case ‘crazy person’ (1959) (EOL).
Derived from that sense, there is another one, considered
colloquial, which can be defined as ‘an obsessive enthusiast or devotee’
(COED), as in a movie nut or a football nut. This sense of nut
can be translated into Spanish as aficionado/a, fanático/a (e.g.,
Sp. un fanático del cine) or forofo/a (Sp. un forofo del
fútbol). This seems seems to have derived from the ‘crazy’ sense in the
middle of the 19th century. The expression to be nuts about, as in I’m
nuts about opera’ (AHD), seems to stem from an late 18th century phrase be
nutts upon that meant ‘to be very fond of’.
There are some additional senses of nut derived from
the original one, such as the sense ‘testicle’, which is ‘vulgar slang’
according to the American Heritage Dictionary (AHD), equivalent to Sp. huevos
[lit. ‘eggs’], cojones, pelotas (Cono Sur and Spain), tanates
(México), all of them considered vulgar, in addition to the more clinical testículos.
In the context of string musical instruments, a nut is ‘the fixed ridge on the
neck of a stringed instrument over which the strings pass’ (COED) (cf. Sp. ceja,
cejilla, or cejuela, cf. ceja ‘eyebrow’, from Lat. cĭlĭum ‘eyelid’, cf. sŭpercĭlĭum
‘eyebrow’). In colloquial British English slang, the word nut is also
used informally with the sense of ‘(human) head’. Hence the expression to be
off one’s nut, equivalent to to be nuts, equivalent to Sp. estar
chalado/a.
The English word nut, pronounced [ˈnʌt] is a patrimonial
Germanic one, not borrowed. It has cognates in other Germanic languages such as
West Frisian nút, Dutch not or noot (which is ‘now rare
except in compounds’), German Nuss, Swedish nöt, and Danish nød
(OED). It is thought that these words descend from ‘a Germanic base showing an
extended form of the same Indo-European base as’ Irish cnó, Welsh cnau,
and classical Latin nŭx
(OED). English nut descends most directly from Old English hnutu,
a word whose Proto-West Germanic source has been reconstructed as *hnut and
its Proto-Germanic one as *hnuts, cf. Old High German nuz and Old
Norse hnot. As we just saw, Eng. nut is related to Lat. nŭx, though we are told the
Germanic words descend from an extended form of the same PIE root that
has given us Lat. nŭx,
the source of Sp. nuez. This makes Eng. nut and Sp. nuez
cognate (related, since they share a root), but not full cognates (since they
do not derive from the same source lexeme). In this book we call such words (semi-)cognates
(cf. Part I, Chapter 1). The exact form of the Proto-Indo-European root is not
certain, though some have reconstructed it as *knew‑. Thus, the following is the best we can do to reconstruct the origin of Eng. nut and Sp. nuez from a questionable Proto-Indo-European root *knew- (or something similar) with some added extension (suffix), different in each case, let us call them X and Y, through two reconstructed intermediate states—Proto-Germanic and Proto-Italic—and two attested ones—Old English and Latin.
PIE *knew‑?
+ X |
→ |
PGmc *hnuts |
→ |
OEng hnutu |
→ |
Eng nut |
PIE *knew‑?
+ Y |
→ |
PItl *knuks |
→ |
Lat nux |
→ |
Sp nuez |
The form nŭx
was the nominative singular wordform of the Latin word we just saw, and it was
presumably pronounced [ˈnʊks].
This word’s genitive singular wordform was nŭcis [ˈnʊkɪs]. and its accusative singular one nŭcem [ˈnʊkɛ(m)]. Thus, as we can see, the word’s regular root was nŭc‑ (note that nux is
just a special Latin way to spell what could very well have been spelled *nuc‑s,
if Latin didn’t have a letter x to represent the combination of sounds
[ks]). It is from the accusative wordform nŭcem that patrimonial Sp. nuez
‘walnut’ comes from.
Lat. nux did not mean ‘walnut’, though, as its
Spanish descendant does primarily today. It meant what Eng. nut means,
namely ‘a nut’, ‘a fruit with a hard shell or rind’ (L&S). The word nux could
figure in the Latin name of the most common types of nuts, but often this word
was elided. These are the names of the most common types of nuts in the Roman
world:
- (nux) iūglāns ‘a walnut’ (also ‘walnut-tree’) (gen. iūglandis); iūglāns comes from the phrase Iovis glans ‘lit. Jupiter’s acorn’ (cf. Lat. glans glandis: ‘acorn’, ‘any acorn-shaped fruit, beechnut, chestnut, etc.’); this type of nut is known in Spanish as nuez ‘walnut’ (genus Juglans, family Juglandaceae) and the tree is known as nogal ‘walnut tree’ (see below)
- nux amara ‘a bitter almond’; cf. Sp. almendra amarga, scientific name Prunus dulcis/amygdalus var. amara; the word for a regular, edible almond in Latin was ămygdălum, a loanword from Ancient Greek ἀμύγδαλον (amúgdalon) ‘almond, almond shaped’
- nux castănĕa ‘chestnut’; cf. Sp. castaña, scientific Castanea sativa; Eng. chestnut descends from an early (Proto-Germanic) loanword from Lat. castănĕa, a word that Latin itself borrowed from Ancient Greek καστάνεια (kastáneia), an alternative form of κᾰ́στᾰνᾰ (kástana) ‘sweet chestnut’
- nux avellana ‘hazelnut’; cf. Sp. avellana, scientific Corylus avellana; Lat. avellana was an adjective derived from the place name Abella or, later, Avella in southern Italy[c]
Sp. nuez is the descendant of Lat. nux
[ˈnʊks], but its meaning has
become specialized in the popular language to refer to a specific type of edible
nut, namely a walnut, an example of meaning narrowing (cf. Part I, Chapter 3). As
we saw, Sp. nuez and Eng. nut are cognate (related), since they
derive from the same PIE root, but not full cognates since, since it seems that
Eng. nut descends from ‘a Germanic base showing an extended form
of the same Indo-European base as’ Lat. nux (OED, my italics). In other
words, these words derive from the same PIE root, but not from exactly the same
stem and, thus, lexeme, which is our definition of what (full) cognates are (cf.
Part I, Chapter 1).
Before we get into the difference in meaning between Eng. nut
and Sp. nuez, we should note the form of the word nuez, which is pronounced
[ˈnu̯eθ] or [ˈnu̯es], depending on the dialect (cf. Part I, Chapters 7, 10,
11). First, we should note that the letter z in this word, which today
is pronounced [θ] in
most of Spain and [s] elsewhere, and which was pronounced [ʦ̪] in Old Spanish, is just
what we would expect from a word that descends from Lat. nŭcem,
pronounced [ˈnʊkɛm] in classical Latin, with a ‘hard c’. The [k]
changed to [ʦ̪] quite
early on, as it always happened in patrimonial words before the front vowels e
and i (cf. Part I, Chapter 10). The final e and m were
lost eventually, the latter much earlier than the former.
The Latin short Ŭ
in the accusative wordform nŭcem, the source of Sp. nuez, on
the other hand, did not change in the way we would have expected. This short ŭ should have become Sp. o,
as it typically did, unless there was a nearby sound that caused it to change
to something else, which is not the case here. In other words, nuez
should have been noz in Spanish, not nuez. However, as DCEH tells
us, the form nuez is the only one found in the oldest written records.
The only possible source for the diphthong ue in Spanish is a stressed
short Latin Ŏ, which
would have been pronounced [ɔ]
originally in Latin but which, when stressed, changed to [ue] in Old Spanish
(when unstressed, it changed to [o], written 〈o〉).[d] This
could have happened if classical Latin nŭx had changed to nŏx in Vulgar Latin or at
least in Hispanic Vulgar Latin. There is no written evidence for this having
happened, but it is entirely possible that it did. As DCEH reminds us, the same
issue of an vowel more open than expected is found in the descendants of this
Latin word in all three major Hispanic Romances, (Catalan and Portuguese, in
addition to Spanish), as well as in many of the Romances of southern Gaul,
known collectively as Occitan or lenga d’òc (Sp. lengua de oc),
cf. Portuguese and Galego noz and Catalan nou, cognates of Sp. nuez.
DCEH suggests that this unexpected vowel change may have been due to the
influence of a cognate native Celtic word knŏva ‘nut’, which had a short ŏ.
As we saw, the main meaning of Sp. nuez is ‘walnut’,
i.e., ‘fruit of the walnut tree’ (DLE).[e] However,
in Botany, that is, when Sp. nuez is used as a technical term,
especially when used together with qualifiers, it can also mean ‘nut’, that is,
it can be synonymous with Eng. nut. In the words of the Academies’
dictionary: a nuez can also be the ‘fruit of other trees that bears some
resemblance to that of the walnut by the nature of its pericarp’ (DLE).[f]
This, however, is not the way the word is used by most people, even when they
know about the technical usage.
So, we might ask whether there is a word in Spanish than can
be used non-technically to mean ‘nut’ and the simple answer is that there really
isn’t one. This can be problematic since edible nuts are often consumed nowadays
in mixed format, as mixed nuts used for snacking, particularly in the
English-speaking world but also in the Spanish-speaking one. Note that when
used this way, the English word nuts can refer to a mixture that
contains things that are not strictly speaking nuts, such as peanuts, which are
a legume, from the same family as peas and lentils. Such mixtures also often
contain dried fruits and, in particular, raisins. The traditional name for such
mixed nuts in Spanish is frutos secos, lit. ‘dried fruits’ (note the use
of the masculine form fruto, not the feminine fruta),[g]
though such a mixture may or may not contain dried fruit in addition to nuts. Of
course, nuts are fruits (frutos) too and, compared to most fruit (fruta),
they are moist, not dry.
The English word nut is found in a few more common compound words or phrases. The phrase beer nut comes from a trade name for a brand of nuts. Beer Nuts™ is ‘a product name for a popular US snack food. They are nuts which are treated to make them taste both sweet and salty’ (OALD). Some common expressions with the word nut (or nuts) are: a tough nut to crack (cf. Sp. un hueso duro de roer) and to be nuts about something/somebody (cf. Sp. estar loco/a por algo/alguien). The phrase nuts and bolts can have a literal sense, but it also has a figurative one equivalent to ‘the essentials’, ‘the basic practical details’ (COED) or ‘the basic parts or details of an activity, job, etc.’ (Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's Dictionary), cf. Sp. lo básico, lo esencial, etc. This sense is attested by the middle of the 20th century (EOL).
Finally, the word nut is object found as an object of the
verb crack, as in to crack a nut. In other words, crack and nut
are often found in collocation. Spanish uses the verb cascar ‘to crack,
etc.’ in equivalent expressions, though romper ‘to break’ can also be
used. A specialized tool to crack nuts is known as a nutcracker in
English. This word translates into Spanish as cascanueces (cf. Part I,
Chapter 5).
Sp. nogal and noguera
The main name for the walnut tree in Spanish is nogal
(masculine). This is also a patrimonial word, attested in writing as early as
the late 11th century (DCEH). This noun descends ultimately from the Late Latin
adjective nŭcālis
‘relating to nuts’, or more accurately this word’s accusative wordform nŭcālem. This adjective was
derived from the root nŭc‑
of the Latin noun nŭx
(see above), plus the third declension adjective-forming suffix ‑āl‑ (the additional suffix
‑is is the masculine/feminine nominative ending of third-declension Latin
adjectives.)
The sound changes here are the expected ones, since the Latin
short ŭ changed
to Spanish o and the intervocalic ‑c‑ changed to ‑g‑. (The
Latin short ŭ is
unstressed in this case, unlike in the case of nŭcem, but stress is not supposed to
affect what Latin short ŭ
becomes in Spanish, which is typically o.) The final m was
lost early on and then the now final e was lost much later. (For an
explanation of all these sound changes, cf. Part I, Chapter 10.)
Another word for ‘walnut tree’ in Spanish is noguera,
a word is also a patrimonial descendant of late or medieval Latin (arbor) nŭcārĭa ‘nut tree’, though this
word is less common in modern Spanish. There are cognates of this word in other
Romance languages such as Portuguese nogueira, French noyer,
Catalan noguera, and Occitan noguièr. Lat. nŭcārĭa was the feminine form
of the vulgar Latin adjective nŭcārĭus/a
which was clearly derived from the same Latin root nŭc‑ of Lat. nŭx, plus the first/second
declension adjective-forming suffix ‑ārĭ‑
(the additional suffix ‑a is the feminine nominative ending of
first-declension adjectives and the suffix ‑us is the masculine nominative
ending of second-declension adjectives.) In the case of noguera, the
sound changes that brought about this word’s form from the original Lat. nŭcārĭa are also the expected
ones. In addition to the ones mentioned in the case of nogal, we have
the very common change from Lat. ‑ari‑ change to Sp. ‑er‑, which
presumably went through a state of being ‑air‑ first (e.g. operarius
> obrero ‘worker’). Both Noguera and Nogal are found as
Spanish last names, presumably derived from place names (toponyms).
Eng. nucleus/nuclear
~ Sp. núcleo/nuclear
Lat. nū̆clĕus is a contraction of an earlier nŭcŭlĕus
(nŭc‑ŭlĕ‑us), which was a diminutive of the noun nux and
which originally meant simply ‘little nut’ and it referred to the seed of a
nut, its edible part. Figuratively, Lat. nū̆clĕus could also mean
‘kernel, core, nucleus’. Lat. nŭcŭlĕus was formed from the root nŭc‑
of the noun nŭx, and the suffix ‑ŭlĕ‑(us) that formed masculine
diminutives (the final ‑us is the nominative singular inflection
following the diminutive suffix). This suffix descends from a blend of the
suffix ‑ul‑(us)/‑ol‑(us)/‑l‑(us) plus the suffix ‑ĕ‑(us/a/um) that
originally formed adjectives from nouns (cf. Eng. ‑eous and Sp. Spanish:
‑eo, as in Eng. ferreous and Sp. férreo.)
In fairly recent times, this Latin word was borrowed into
English as nucleus [ˈn(j)u.kli.əs] and into Spanish as núcleo [ˈnu.kle.o]. As we can see,
English left the spelling of the word as it was in Latin (nominative singular
case), while adapting the pronunciation to its phonology, of course. Spanish made
a small change to this loanword from Latin, as it typically does, namely it changed
the masculine singular inflection ‑us to ‑o (cf. Part I, Chapter
8). The plural form of Eng. nucleus is nuclei [ˈn(j)u.kli.ˌaɪ̯], which is how the nominative
plural form of the Latin word was spelled (i.e., the inflection was ‑i).
Actually, the OED tells us that the regularized plural form nucleuses
has been used in English before but that it is ‘rare’. Both solutions are found
in recent Latin loanwords, namely maintenance of the Latin plural and
regularization to ‑(e)s. Spanish, as usual, regularized the plural of núcleo
to núcleos.
As we mentioned, Sp. núcleo is not a patrimonial word,
but rather a learned loanword from Latin (Sp. cultismo), though not a
fancy word any longer (Sp. palabra culta). DCEH tells us that it can be found
in a Spanish ‘dictionary’ already in the late 15th century, seemingly with the botanical
sense the word had in Latin. Modern Spanish dictionaries give several meanings
for the word núcleo. Some of these senses are botanical ones that refer
to seeds, but most are figurative and technical. Until recently, Spanish
dictionaries still listed the botanical senses first, before the derived
(figurative) ones, such as DRAE 22 (2001) and María Moliner. Thus, for example,
the first two senses for núcleo in María Moliner 2e (very similar to the
two first senses in DRAE 22) were ‘1. m. * Almond or seed of fruits that have a
shell, such as walnut. 2. * Fruit pit/stone’.[h] In
the most recent (online) version of the Academies’ dictionary (DLE), the
earlier sense #3 has been bumped to #1, namely the sense ‘1. m. Central part or
point of something material or immaterial’.[i]
Other current dictionaries, such as in Larousse and Vox, agree that this is the
main meaning of Sp. núcleo, though no dictionary mentions yet that the
botanical sense is archaic, though they may have to soon.[j] Other
senses for núcleo in these dictionaries mirror the technical senses of
Eng. nucleus in English ones as a term used in physics, chemistry,
biology, linguistics, botany, and astronomy.
The meanings of Eng. nucleus are pretty much those modern
Sp. núcleo, minus the botanical senses, which as we said are rare if not
archaic in Spanish today. The OED tells us that Eng. nucleus is first
attested in English in the second half of the 17th century to refer to the ‘core
of a comet’ (1668) and a ‘central idea’ (1672). Again, no English dictionary
gives a botanical or seed-related sense for nucleus, other than the OED,
which gives these senses as ‘obsolete’.[k] COED
gives its main meaning as ‘the central and most important part of an object or
group’, with three more technical senses. The AHD gives 9 main senses for Eng. nucleus,
all but the first two being technical ones in biology, anatomy, physics,
chemistry, astronomy, meteorology, and linguistics.
According to DCEH, the Italian word nocchio or gnocco,
which refers to a sweet meatball or dumpling, is probably a patrimonial
descendant of the Latin word nucleus. This Italian word has been
borrowed into both English and Spanish. In English, it is used in its (Italian)
plural form gnocchi ‘(in Italian cooking) small dumplings made from
potato, semolina, or flour’ (COED). DCEH tells us that ñoclo is already
attested in the mid-16th century with the same meaning as the original one just
mentioned and that in Argentina, ñoques (from the Italian plural gnocchi)
refers to ‘a kind of fritter made with boiled and broken up potatoes, eggs and
flour’.[l]
Other sources, however, think that the origin of this Italian word is unknown
and that it is most likely of Germanic origin.[m]
From the Latin noun nū̆clĕus an adjective was derived
by means of the Latin adjective-forming suffix ‑ār‑(is), giving us the adjective nucleāris (nucle‑ār‑is).
This is a New Latin word, for there is no indication that it was ever used in
classical Latin. The word was borrowed into English as nuclear [ˈn(j)u.kli.əɹ] in the first half of the 19th
century (OED), with many different meanings having been added since then in the
fields of astronomy, biology, medicine, and linguistics, among others. Spanish
borrowed this word as nuclear [nu.kle.ˈaɾ]
with very similar meanings to Eng. nuclear and it was no doubt cloned
from either this English word or from its French cognate nucleaire.
Eng. nugget
Because of its form and its meaning, one might have thought that
the English word nugget might have some relation to the word nut
and, thus, to Sp. nuez. That, however, is not the case. Eng. nugget
[ˈnʌɡət] seems to be derived from a dialectal English word nug meaning ‘lump’,
which is of unknown origin. The word seems to contain the diminutive suffix ‑et
that Middle English borrowed from Old French, a suffix that comes from Vulgar
Latin *‑ittum, the source of the Spanish diminutive suffix ‑ito/a.
The word nugget first appeared in the written record in the first half
of the 19th century, first with the meaning ‘a small, compact, stocky person;
(also) an undersized animal, a runt’ (OED).
[a]
The word acorn, which was spelled æcern
in Old English, descends from a compound word that contained the word corn
with its original sense of ‘a kernel or seed of a plant’. The first part of the
compound was not the ancestor of the word oak, as one might have thought,
but rather a root that goes back to the Proto-Indo-European root *ōg‑,
meaning ‘fruit, berry’ (AHD).
[b]
There are four main types of such hardware nuts: hex nut (Sp. tuerca
hexagonal), T-nut (aka tee nut or blind nut, Sp. tuerca
T), hex cap nut, wingnut (Sp. tuerca (de) mariposa).
The origin of the word tuerca is uncertain,
though it most likely came from an earlier puerca by influence of the
initial t in the word tornillo ‘screw, bolt’.
[c]
Eng. hazelnut is a compound that includes the word hazel ‘a shrub
or small tree bearing catkins in spring and edible nuts in autumn’ (COED);
another word for ‘hazelnut’ in English is filbert, from filbert-nut, a
calque from Anglo-Norman noix de filbert, since these nuts become ripe around
Saint Philibert’s Day (Aug. 20)
[d]
In the Spanish historical linguistics tradition, this short o is written
ǫ, the letter o with an ‘ogonek’, also known as o caudata,
which was a letter used in Old Norse.
[e] Original: ‘Fruto del nogal; es
de forma ovoide…’ (DLE).
[f] Original: ‘Fruto de otros
árboles que tiene alguna semejanza con el del nogal por la naturaleza de su
pericarpio. Nuez de coco [‘coconut’], [nuez] de areca, de burí, de nipa, [nuez]
moscada [‘nutmeg’].’ (DLE).
[g]
Both fruto and fruta translate as fruit into English. Dictionaries
give several different definitions (senses) for masculine fruto, but the
main one is ‘product of plants, which, apart from the utility it may have,
serves to develop and protect the seed’ (‘producto de las plantas, que, aparte
de la utilidad que puede tener, sirve para desarrollar y proteger la semilla’,
DLE). This is the second definition for the word in the DLE, but the first
sense is a very similar and more technical one in Botany, not surprisingly
since this term is perhaps mostly used as a technical term. The word fruto can
also be translated in some contexts as result or product. It is
found in expressions such as dar fruto ‘to bear fruit’ (AEI), sacar
fruto de algo ‘to profit from something’ (AEI), fruto prohibido
‘forbidden fruit’ (OSD), dar/rendir frutos ‘to bear fruit’ (OSD),
el fruto de su trabajo ‘the fruits of her labor’ (OSD), fruto de su
imaginación ‘a figment of his imagination’ (OSD), el fruto de tu vientre
‘the fruit of your womb’ (expression in a Catholic prayer to the Virgin Mary).
The feminine word fruta, on the other hand, refers
to a subset of such frutos characterized by being edible: ‘edible fruit
of certain cultivated plants, e.g., pear, cherry, strawberry, etc.’ (‘fruto comestible de ciertas
plantas cultivadas; p. ej., la pera, la guinda, la fresa, etc.’, DLE).
[h] Original: ‘1. m.
*Almendra o semilla de los frutos que tienen cáscara, como la nuez. 2. *Hueso
de las frutas’ (María Moliner).
[i] Original: ‘1. m. Parte o
punto central de algo material o inmaterial’ (DLE)
[j] Original: ‘parte o punto central
de alguna cosa material o inmaterial’ (Larousse).
[k]
OED: ‘4. Botany. †a. The innermost, often edible portion of a nut. Obsolete.
†b. The part of a seed enclosed by integuments. Obsolete. c. The
nucellus of an ovule. Now disused. d. In lichens: the disc of an
apothecium. Now rare. †e. Mycology. In ascomycetes: the totality of
structures within the perithecial wall. Obsolete.’
etc.
[l] Original: ‘una especie de
buñuelos hechos con papas hervidas y deshechas, huevos y harina’ (DCEH).
[m]
Some sources argue that It. gnoccho or nocchio it is perhaps related
to the word for a regional word ‘knot, joint’ of Germanic origin: *knokō
in Proto-West Germanic, *knukô in Proto-Germanic, derived from the Proto-Indo-European
root *gnew‑ ‘a bundle; knot’.
[1] Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Common-nuts.png
(2021.11.30)
[2] Source: De Paolo Neo - http://www.public-domain-image.com/public-domain-images-pictures-free-stock-photos/flora-plants-public-domain-images-pictures/seeds-public-domain-images-pictures/acorn-pictures/acorn.jpg, Dominio público, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24897946 (2021.11.30)
[3] Source: By Afrank99
- Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6828019
(2021.11.28)