nut out

English

WOTD – 25 April 2022

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈnʌt aʊt/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈnɐt ˌæɔt/, /-ˌæʊt/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Etymology 1

From nut (“(slang) the head”) + out, referring to thinking or working something out in one’s head.

Verb

nut out (third-person singular simple present nuts out, present participle nutting out, simple past and past participle nutted out)

1. (transitive, Australia, New Zealand, informal) To find a solution (for something), especially in a group discussion; also, to work out the finer details (of something).
   • 1965, William J[ames] Cameron, “From Adversity to Diversity”, in New Zealand (A Spectrum Book), Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, →OCLC, page 136:

     [A] chronic optimistic faith in pragmatic experiment to overcome deficiencies in the knowledge of these experts (rather than set up an expensive preparatory research program) was responsible for the difficulties that immediately occurred when the factory began to produce glass in July 1962. An Auckland newspaper reporter transmitted the parochial attitude of the technical management when he boasted that the finer points of glassmaking “had to be nutted out by Kiwis on the spot.”

   • 1974, Ronald Hugh Morrieson, Predicament, London: Robert Hale, published 1982, →ISBN, page 89:

     On the Monday afternoon, at about four o'clock, Mervyn said, “Well, we’re doing a lot of sitting around gas, gas, gas, but it seems to me we’ve got everything there is to nut out, nutted out. […]”

   • 1997, Paul Freeman, Ian Roberts: Finding Out, Milsons Point, N.S.W.: Random House Australia, →ISBN, page 70:

     In ’86 Frank helped Ian [Roberts] nut out his first contract—$26,000 a year— […]

   • 2003 November 25, Gary Nairn, “Economics, Finance and Public Administration Committee: Report”, in Parliamentary Debates (Hansard): House of Representatives (Australian House of Representatives)‎^[1], volume 259, Canberra: […] Government of the Commonwealth of Australia, →OCLC, page 22823:

     An inquiry takes place and more often than not all sides of politics—I should use ‘all’ rather than ‘both’ with the member for Cunningham sitting opposite—get together and nut out something, compromising a little bit here or there to come up with a final result.

   • 2010, Stefan Korn, Scott Lancaster, Eric Mooij, Being a Great Dad for Dummies (For Dummies), Australian & New Zealand edition, Milton, Qld.: Wiley Publishing Australia, →ISBN, page 273:

     Nutting out our own way of doing things may take some work, but we get there.

Translations

to find a solution (for something), especially in a group discussion; to work out the finer details (of something)

Etymology 2

From nut (“(slang) crazy person”) + out.

Verb

nut out (third-person singular simple present nuts out, present participle nutting out, simple past and past participle nutted out)

1. (intransitive, US, informal) To become crazy, especially with rage.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:rave

   • 1981, Amiri Baraka, “Black America and the Afro-American Nation: The Urban Voice”, in Michael C. Jaye, Ann Chalmers Watts, editors, Literature & the American Urban Experience: Essays on the City and Literature, Manchester: Manchester University Press, →ISBN, page 156:

     There was also the Black political pimp syndrome where a few middle-class and bourgeois negroes got big off the people’s struggles, and then nutted out completely, joining forces with our enemies, as agents, messengers, sophisticated stool pigeons, professional confusers.

   • 1994, Eric Cummins, “The Force of Imprisoned Words”, in The Rise and Fall of California’s Radical Prison Movement, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page 254:

     The day we found out George Jackson was murdered he nutted out. I was there, at Shirley Sutherland′s house in Beverly Hills, the afternoon we heard George Jackson was murdered, and he nutted out at this meeting, right there.

   • 2005, Michael Connelly, chapter 9, in The Lincoln Lawyer, New York, N.Y., Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 88:

     I tried not to think about clients who were in prison without appellate hopes or anything else left but years of time in front of them to nut out. I do what I can with each case but sometimes there is nothing that can be done.

Translations

to become crazy, especially with rage — see rave

See also

• do one's nut

Further reading

• “nut out, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.