1887. Henley, Culture in the Slums, 'Ballade,' iii. The Grosvenor's nuts—it is, indeed.
1893. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads, 4. It's nuts to 'ook on to a swell.
7. in pl. (Stock Exchange).—Barcelona Tramway Shares.
8. (common).—A drink; a go (q.v.): see Drinks.
Verb. (old).—1. To fondle; to ogle; to spoon (q.v.).—Vaux (1819).
1820. London Mag., i. 26. Always nutting each other.
1823. Grose, Vulg. Tongue [Egan], s.v. Nuts. The cove's nutting the blowen; the man is trying to please the girl.
2. (pugilists').—To strike on the head.
To be nuts (or dead nuts)
on, verb. phr. (common).—1.
See quot. 1819.
1819. Vaux, Memoirs, s.v. Nuts upon it, to be very much pleased or gratified with any object, adventure, or overture; so a person who conceives a strong inclination for another of the opposite sex, is said to be quite nutty, or nuts upon him or her.
1823. Grose, Vulg. Tongue [Egan], s.v. Nuts. She's nuts upon her cull; she's pleased with her cully.
1853. Diogenes, ii. 30. It's rich nutty flavour I'm nuts on no more.
1860. Punch's Book of British Costumes, xxxviii. p. 219. Or cowls; but left their heads with nothing but their hair to cover them. The fact was that the dandies were so nuts upon their 'nuts' that they did not like to hide their fair (or dark) proportions.
1873. Black, Princess of Thule, xi. My aunt is awful nuts on Marcus Aurelius; I beg your pardon, you don't know the phrase; my aunt makes Marcus Aurelius her Bible.
1882. Punch, lxxxii. 177. I am nuts upon Criminal Cases, Perlice News, you know, and all that.
1893. Milliken, 'Any Ballads, 10. I'm not nuts on Bohea,
2. (common).—To be very skilful or dexterous.
3. (common).—To be particular; to detest.
1890. Punch, 22 Feb. He's nuts on Henery George.
To crack a nut (Old Scots').—See
quot.
1889. Notes and Queries, 7 S. viii. 437. In country gentlemen's houses [in Scotland] in the olden time, when a fresh guest arrived he was met by the laird, who made him crack a nut—that is, drink a silver-mounted cocoa-nut shell full of claret.
The nut, subs. phr. (nautical).—See quot.
1891. Daily Telegraph, 27 Mar. Other notes and time-honoured hostelries of Portsmouth town are affectionately commemorated, if not by absolute reproduction, by borrowing their signs. Thus, in one corner, may be discovered the Keppel's Head, known to all her Majesty's navy as the Nut, but perhaps hardly to be recognised in its Chelsea guise—a temperance café.
A nut to crack, phr. (colloquial).—A
problem to solve; a
puzzle to explain; a difficulty to
overcome.
1843. Longfellow, Spanish Student. I've nuts to crack, but where shall I find almonds.
1849. Lytton, Caxtons, 1. i. To others this nut of such a character was hard to crack.
1897. Daily Mail, 26 Oct., 4, 3. The information gained by the recent gun-boat reconnaissance up river . . . shows that this position will be a hard nut to crack.
Of one's nut, phr. (common).—1.
Crazy.
1876. Sims, Dagonet Ballads (Polly). Or to go off their nuts about ladies as dies for young fellers as fights.
2. (common).—Drunk; in liquor: see Drinks and Screwed.
