chestnuts

as injoke
as inauburn
as inplatitude
as inred
as inbanality
as intale
as inha-ha
as incliché
as incommonplace
as inanecdote

Synonyms for chestnuts

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Antonyms for chestnuts

Word Origin & History

1560s, from chesten nut (1510s), with superfluous nut (n.) + Middle English chasteine, from Old French chastain (12c., Modern French châtaigne), from Latin castanea "chestnut, chestnut tree," from Greek kastaneia, which the Greeks thought meant either "nut from Castanea" in Pontus, or "nut from Castana" in Thessaly, but probably both places are named for the trees, not the other way around, and the word is borrowed from a language of Asia Minor (cf. Armenian kask "chestnut," kaskeni "chestnut tree"). In reference to the dark reddish-brown color, 1650s. Applied to the horse-chestnut by 1832.

Slang sense of "venerable joke or story" is from 1885, explained 1888 by Joseph Jefferson (see "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine," January 1888) as probably abstracted from the 1816 melodrama "The Broken Sword" by William Dimond where an oft-repeated story involving a chestnut tree figures in an exchange between the characters "Captain Zavior" and "Pablo":

Jefferson traced the connection through William Warren, "the veteran comedian of Boston" who often played Pablo in the melodrama.

Example Sentences forchestnuts

I had carefully selected my chestnuts—and waited till they were cool.

Chestnuts should always be roasted or boiled before they are eaten.

This gave him the appearance, either of an artist of sorts or of a seller of chestnuts!

Surely you don't want to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them!

"I vote for the chestnuts," said Baby, slapping her boot with her horsewhip.

There would not be so much meat in the chestnuts, if they were eaten before they had time to grow.

The boys were then all satisfied that it was better that chestnuts should grow in burrs.

If the chestnuts were good, he was afraid they would pick them off and eat them, if they were small.

Of course, all stories are "chestnuts" an hour after they are told.

He admires the profusion of walnuts, chestnuts, wild apples and plums.