• nutmeg •
Pronunciation: nêt-meg • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. The evergreen tree Myristica fragrans, native to the Moluccas, or the aromatic kernel of its tree, used as a spice. 2. The dark grey-brown color with a reddish tinge of nutmegs. 3. (Football/Soccer slang) The maneuver of kicking the ball between the legs of an opponent.
Notes: This word has escaped the vocabulary of cuisine arts and spread to sports. It comes with an adjective, nutmeggy. A 'wooden nutmeg' is anything false or fraudulent, from the days when crooks sold plugs the size of nutmegs for real nutmegs.
In Play: Although today's word is mostly used as a noun: "Llewellyn's chili wasn't quite as good as usual last night because he forgot the nutmeg," among British football (soccer) fans you might hear this word used as a verb: "Summerbee nutmegged more players in the game last night than I've seen all season."
Word History: In Old English today's Good Word was based on Old French noiz muguete "musk nut". The Old English word for "nut" at that time was hnutu from Proto-Germanic hnut-, source also of Dutch noot, German Nuss, Danish nød, and Swedish nöt. By Middle English the word was wavering between notemege and notemuge. The French phrase was inherited from Late Latin nux muscate "musky nut". Latin nux descended from PIE kneu- "nut", also responsible for Irish cnú, Welsh cneuen, Scotts Gaelic cno. Latin nux went on to become French noix, Italian noce, Portuguese noz, Romanian nucă, and Spanish nuez. (Today's spicy Good Word was suggested by Eileen Opiolka of Ayr, Scotland, in the Alpha Agora.)
