ground-nut
[Cf. Du. grondnoot, in sense 1.]
1. One of the small farinaceous edible tubers of the wild bean (Apios tuberosa), a climbing plant of North America; also, the plant producing these.
| 1636 in M. A. Green Springfield, Mass. (1888) 12 They shall..have liberty to take Fish and Deer, groundnuts, walnuts, akornes. 1765 T. Hutchinson Hist. Mass. I. ii. 301 The Indians coold come at the ground-nuts, which seem to have been all their provision. 1854 Thoreau Walden xiii. 257, I discovered the ground-nut (Apios tuberosa) on its string—the potato of the aborigines. 1865 Parkman Champlain vii. (1875) 274 Biencourt and his followers were..digging ground-nuts. |
2. The pea-nut or ground-pea (
Arachis hypogæa), largely cultivated in the West Indies and West Africa, the fruit of which is a pod ripening under ground.
| 1769 Watson in Phil. Trans. LIX. 379 They..are the produce of a plant..much cultivated in the Southern colonies, and in our American sugar islands, where they are called ground nuts, or ground pease. 1775 Romans Florida 131 The ground nut also introduced by the Blacks from Guinea, is next after this for its easy cultivation. 1863 Wand. West Afr. I. 184 The commerce of the place consists principally of the ground nut [etc.]. |
| attrib. 1839 Ure Dict. Arts 895 Ground-nut oil. 1887 C. A. Moloney Forestry W. Afr. 54 The finest ground-nut oil is used as a substitute for and mixture with olive. Ibid. 57 The ground-nut industry. |
3. The earth-nut (
Bunium flexuosum).
| 1653 Culpeper Eng. Physitian 64 They are called Earth-Nuts, Earth-Chestnuts, Ground-Nuts, [etc.]. 1879 [see earth-nut 1]. |