butter-nut
(ˈbʌtənʌt)
[f. butter n.1 + nut.]
1. A large oily nut, the fruit of the Juglans cinerea or White Walnut-tree of N. America.
| 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp. s.v., Butter-nut, a fruit in New England, whose kernel yields a great quantity of sweet oil. 1882 Garden 11 Nov. 433/3 The Butter Nut..strongly resembles the Walnut both in shape and flavour. 1883 Ayer in Harper's Mag. Feb. 365/1 That is where the children used to crack the hickory and butter nuts. |
b. The tree itself. (More fully butternut-tree.)
| 1783 Dr. Rush Let. in Mem. J. C. Lettsom III. 188 The Butter-nut pill..is made by boiling the inner bark of a species of the Walnut in water. 1856 Bryant Fountain vii, The dark fruit That falls from the gray butternut's long boughs. 1877 J. Hawthorne Garth III. x. lxxxiv. 270 Butternut trees flung their black shadows. |
2. Name of the genus Caryocar of S. America (esp. C. nuciferum) and its fruit.
| 1845 Don Hortus Cantabrigiensis 373. 1866 Treas. Bot. s.v. Caryocar, C. nuciferum, which produces the Souari or Butter-nuts, occasionally met with in English fruit-shops. |
3. attrib. and quasi-adj. Of the colour of the butter-nut (sense 1), i.e. of a brownish-grey. This was the colour of the Southern uniform in the American War of Secession.
| 1861 Mrs. Stowe Pearl Orr's Isl. 9 His coarse butter-nut-coloured coat-flaps fluttering..in the breeze. 1863 Ludlow in Daily News 5 Oct. /5 The..atrocious murder of 20 fugitive negroes by guerillas wearing the butternut uniform. 1864 Sala in Daily Tel. 7 Apr., The ‘butternut’ hue, I was informed, is a kind of warm grey. 1882 Woolson For the Major iii. in Harper's Mag. Dec. 104/2 He was attired in a coat of..black, with butternut trousers. |
b. Hence absol. (n. omitted).
| 1863 Cornh. Mag. Jan. 102 The regiments in homespun grey and butternut that trail dustily through the high⁓streets [of Richmond]. 1863 Times 6 Mar., A ‘Butternut’ is one who sympathizes with the South—one, in fact, who wears the uniform or livery of the Southern army. 1864 Nasby Papers xi, The benevelent old butternut. |
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▸ orig. and chiefly U.S. In full butternut squash. An edible winter squash of a pear-shaped variety with a buff-coloured shell and orange flesh.
| 1942 Christian Sci. Monitor 2 Nov. 4/4 Mrs. Colt..is now using the Club's hospital facilities to can quantities of the delicious new butternut squash. 1960 Sheboygan (Wisconsin) Press 3 Nov. 24/4 The golden meat of squash is an historical part of fall festivals. Acorn, butternut and Hubbard, joys to the palate, are also nuggets of nutrition. 1979 W. Berry Gift of Good Land (1981) 55 Most of the summer crops are native: a sixty-day corn, three varieties of tepary beans..butternut squash, and devil's claw. 2002 Time Out 2 Jan. 48/4 Open ravioli of spicy butternut squash with a buttery sauce. |