nugget

English

A gold nugget (small, compact chunk).

Etymology

Uncertain. Possibly from a rebracketed alteration of an ingot as a ni(n)got. Alternatively, likely a diminutive of dialectal nug (“lump, block”) +‎ -et.

Pronunciation

• enPR: nŭg'ət, IPA^(key): /ˈnʌɡət/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

nugget (countable and uncountable, plural nuggets)

1. (countable) A small, compact chunk or clump.

   a gold nugget

   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 146:

     Rough men brought pickle bottles full of nuggets. Mysterious dirty-looking calico bags were opened, disclosing small quantities of water-worn flaky gold, which had been washed out of the beds of rivers with a cradle.

2. (countable) A chicken nugget.
   • 2014, Laurie David, The Family Cooks:

     By now, we hope you have said “no” to processed nuggets and fingers. Instead, how about taking some real chicken, tossing it with real eggs, a little tangy mustard, and a crunchy quinoa coating?

3. (countable) A tidbit of something valuable.

   a nugget of wisdom

   a nugget of truth

   • 2023 July 10, Zachary Woolfe, “Review: Ted Hearne’s Sweet, Sad American Elegy”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     As he has in superb works like “The Source” (based on the Afghanistan war logs leaked by Chelsea Manning) and “Sound From the Bench” (which set excerpts from Supreme Court proceedings), Hearne takes these found-text nuggets and gives them music that moves from lushly meditative to frenetic and obsessively repetitive […]

4. (countable) A small piece of tasty food, a tidbit.
5. (uncountable) A type of boot polish.
6. (countable) A bud from the Cannabis sativa plant, especially one that is potent.
7. (countable, slang) An inexperienced, newly trained fighter pilot.
   • 2009, Nick Scipio, Nereids‎^[2]:

     Jack stifled a smirk at the ensign's expressionless non-reaction. He'd been a nugget himself once, the new guy fresh from training.

8. (computing theory) A partial description gleaned from data mining.
   • 2002, Data Mining: A Heuristic Approach, (Please provide the book title or journal name), page 93:

     We have previously said that the heuristic algorithms produce good nuggets for most classes and most λ values […]

9. (slang, countable) A person with no arms or legs; a basket case.
10. (Australia, slang, countable) An item that is typically old and of dubious quality or poor condition.

Derived terms

• chicken nugget
• fuck nugget
• nugg
• nuggetlike
• nugget of truth
• nuggety
• nuggies
• quark nugget
• red nugget galaxy

 

Descendants

• → Portuguese: nugget

Translations

small chunk or clump

• Armenian: բնակտոր (hy) (bnaktor)
• Bulgarian: къс самородно злато (kǎs samorodno zlato)
• Catalan: gra (ca) m, grumoll (ca) m, palleta (ca) f (d'or)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 塊／块 (zh) (kuài)

• Czech: valoun (cs) m
• Danish: klump
• Dutch: steen (nl), klomp (nl) m
• Esperanto: grajno (eo)
• Finnish: hippu (fi)
• French: pépite (fr)
• Galician: baluz m, baluga f
• Georgian: თვითნაბადი (tvitnabadi), თვითნაბადი ოქრო (tvitnabadi okro)
• German: Klumpen (de) m
• Greek: βώλος χρυσού m (vólos chrysoú)
• Hungarian: rög (hu)
• Italian: pepita (it) f
• Japanese: ナゲット (nagetto)
• Korean: 금덩이 (geumdeong'i) (gold nugget)
• Latvian: tīrradnis (lv) m
• Maori: kongakonga
• Polish: bryłka (pl) f
• Portuguese: pepita (pt) f
• Romanian: pepită (ro) f
• Russian: саморо́док (ru) m (samoródok) (especially gold nugget), кусо́к (ru) m (kusók)
• Spanish: pepita (es) f
• Swedish: klimp (sv) c

chicken nugget — see chicken nugget

tidbit of something valuable

• Finnish: jyvä (fi)

small piece of food

• Bulgarian: ха́пка (bg) f (hápka)
• Finnish: makupala (fi)
• Georgian: ბრაწულა (brac̣ula)

type of boot polish

bud of Cannabis plant

inexperienced fighter pilot

• French: bleu (fr) m

partial description gleaned from data mining

Verb

nugget (third-person singular simple present nuggets, present participle nuggetting, simple past and past participle nuggetted)

1. To find nuggets (of something valuable)
   • 1852, James Bonwick, Notes of a Gold Digger: and Gold Digger's Guide, Melbourne: R. Connebee, page 8:

     The other day, you are told, a fellow nuggetted ten or twenty pounds weight, and, of course, you see no reason why half a hundred weight might not be lying snugly ensconced awaiting the revelations of your pick.

2. (slang, Australia, New Zealand) To smear a male's genitals or anus with boot polish or similar substance against his will.
   • 2014 June 17, Helen Davidson, “Blackballing and blanket beatings: decades of abuse at defence training school revealed”, in The Guardian‎^[3], →ISSN:

     Among the complaints to Dart, “blackballing” or “nuggetting” was the most common form of sexual abuse carried out by recruits, and referred to a boy being forcibly held down “while boot polish, toothpaste or another substance was forcibly smeared on his genitals or anal area, sometimes with a hard brush.”

Further reading

• “nugget v.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present

Portuguese

Fast food chicken nuggets from McDonald's.

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English nugget.

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈnɐ.ɡe.t͡ʃi/

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈnɐ.ɡe.t͡ʃi/
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈnɐ.ɡe.te/

Noun

nugget m (plural nuggets)

1. chicken nugget

Quotations

For quotations using this term, see Citations:nugget.

Swedish

Etymology

Borrowed from English nugget.

Noun

nugget c

1. a gold nugget
2. a nugget (food product, for example a chicken nugget)

References

• nugget in Svensk ordbok (SO)