nux

From Proto-Italic *knuks, from a root *knu- also found in Proto-Celtic *knūs (source of Irish cnó) and Proto-Germanic *hnuts (source of English nut). Based on the form of the nouns and the restriction of the root to Germanic, Celtic and Italic, it has been argued to be of non-Indo-European origin. De Vaan suggests that it is related to nūgae (“trifles”).^[1]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈnʊks]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈnuks]

nux f (genitive nucis); third declension

1. nut
2. nut tree

   Inter primas germinant ulmus, salix, nuces.

   Among the first to sprout are the elm, the willow, and the nut tree.

3. a fruit with a hard shell or rind

   nux amara ― a bitter almond

   castaneae nuces ― chestnuts

   nux pinea ― the fruit of the tithymalus

4. (figuratively) a thing of no value
   • c. 206 BCE, Plautus, Miles Gloriosus 2.3.45:

     Nōn ego tuam empsim vītam vitiosā nuce.

     I should not have bought your life with a vicious worthless thing.

5. (poetic) almond tree

Third-declension noun.

• (a thing of no value): res vel vilissima

• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “nŭx”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volume 7: N–Pas, page 257

• “nux”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “nux”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "nux", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• nux in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “nux”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers

• (Standard Zhuang) IPA^(key): /nu˦˨/
• Tone numbers: nu⁴
• Hyphenation: nux

nux (1957–1982 spelling nuч)

1. leprosy

• baenznux