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Nutmeg   /nˈətmˌɛg/   Listen
noun
Nutmeg  n.  (Bot.) The kernel of the fruit of the nutmeg tree (Myristica fragrans), a native of the Molucca Islands, but cultivated elsewhere in the tropics. Note: This fruit is a nearly spherical drupe, of the size of a pear, of a yellowish color without and almost white within. This opens into two nearly equal longitudinal valves, inclosing the nut surrounded by its aril, which is mace. The nutmeg is an aromatic, very grateful to the taste and smell, and much used in cookery. Other species of Myristica yield nutmegs of inferior quality.
American nutmeg, Calabash nutmeg, or Jamaica nutmeg, the fruit of a tropical shrub (Monodora Myristica). It is about the size of an orange, and contains many aromatic seeds imbedded in pulp.
Brazilian nutmeg, the fruit of a lauraceous tree, Cryptocarya moschata.
California nutmeg, a tree of the Yew family (Torreya Californica), growing in the Western United States, and having a seed which resembles a nutmeg in appearance, but is strongly impregnated with turpentine.
Clove nutmeg, the Ravensara aromatica, a lauraceous tree of Madagascar. The foliage is used as a spice, but the seed is acrid and caustic.
Jamaica nutmeg. See American nutmeg (above).
Nutmeg bird (Zool.), an Indian finch (Munia punctularia).
Nutmeg butter, a solid oil extracted from the nutmeg by expression.
Nutmeg flower (Bot.), a ranunculaceous herb (Nigella sativa) with small black aromatic seeds, which are used medicinally and for excluding moths from furs and clothing.
Nutmeg liver (Med.), a name applied to the liver, when, as the result of heart or lung disease, it undergoes congestion and pigmentation about the central veins of its lobules, giving it an appearance resembling that of a nutmeg.
Nutmeg melon (Bot.), a small variety of muskmelon of a rich flavor.
Nutmeg pigeon (Zool.), any one of several species of pigeons of the genus Myristicivora, native of the East Indies and Australia. The color is usually white, or cream-white, with black on the wings and tail.
Nutmeg wood (Bot.), the wood of the Palmyra palm.
Peruvian nutmeg, the aromatic seed of a South American tree (Laurelia sempervirens).
Plume nutmeg (Bot.), a spicy tree of Australia (Atherosperma moschata).





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Nutmeg" Quotes from Famous Books



... bunches of their sausage-shaped fruit and hedged round with pine-apples. Stretching away still further in the distance was the cocoa plantation, a sea of verdure, interspersed with the darker green foliage of the nutmeg and wax-like clove-tree. Here reigned in all its majesty the bread-fruit tree, with broad serrated leaves, like a gigantic horse-chestnut, sheltering the more fragile trees that grow only beneath its shadow, and acting as the "mother of the ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... everywhere the country was covered with beautiful trees, among them the pandanus palm, the tree-fern, the banyan, the bread-fruit tree, wild nutmeg, and superb bamboos. The natives also were very well-behaved and quiet, and were always inclined to treat us hospitably. Indeed, we might have travelled without the slightest risk from one end of the island to the other. ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... a fine meal in about a minute," said the scalery-tailery alligator as he smacked his big jaws. Then he shuffled up closer to Uncle Wiggily, and was about to bite him when all of a sudden the nutmeg grater tail of the scalery alligator accidentally hit against the bluebell ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... might catch on the ice and break, with the weight of the water-filled hull, as was the case with the ill-fated Jeannette. One ship, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, was caught in the ice and dragged over the rocks like a nutmeg over a nutmeg grater. The bottom was sliced off as one would slice a cucumber with a knife, so that the iron blubber tanks in the hold dropped out of her. The ship became nothing but the sides and ends of a box. She remained some twenty-four hours, gripped between the ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... think that as I only had five, I came out last. But you are wrong. There is a pleasing rule in this game that, if you have any word in your list which somebody else has, you cannot count it. And as all the others had the obvious things—such as a nutmeg-grater or a neck of mutton, or a nomlette—my five won easily. And you will note that if only I had been allowed to count my gnats, it would have ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne


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