nut out
UK/ˈnʌt aʊt/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/ˈnɐt ˌæɔt/
nut out verb: to find a solution (for something), especially in a group discussion; also, to work out the finer details (of something).
Verb (1)
nut out (third-person singular simple present nuts out, present participle nutting out, simple past and past participle nutted out)
- To find a solution (for something), especially in a group discussion; also, to work out the finer details (of something).
- [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...1965, William J[ames] Cameron, “From Adversity to Diversity”, in New Zealand (A Spectrum Book), Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, →OCLC, page 136
- 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.[…]”1974, Ronald Hugh Morrieson, Predicament, London: Robert Hale, published 1982, →ISBN, page 89
Verb (2)
nut out (third-person singular simple present nuts out, present participle nutting out, simple past and past participle nutted out)
- To become crazy, especially with rage.
- 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.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...
- 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.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
- Synonyms:
- nut up, craze, have a kangaroo loose in the top paddock, have a screw loose, have bats in one's belfry, have bats in the belfry, have squirrels in the attic, have toys in the attic, rave
Examples of nut out in a sentence
- In ’86 Frank helped Ian [Roberts] nut out his first contract—$26,000 a year—[…]1997, Paul Freeman, Ian Roberts: Finding Out, Milsons Point, N.S.W.: Random House Australia, →ISBN, page 70:
- 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.2005, Michael Connelly, chapter 9, in The Lincoln Lawyer, New York, N.Y.; Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 88:
Synonyms of nut out
- nut up
- craze
- have a kangaroo loose in the top paddock
- have a screw loose
- have bats in one's belfry
- have bats in the belfry
- have squirrels in the attic
- have toys in the attic
- rave
Forms of nut out
| third-person singular present | nuts out |
|---|---|
| present participle | nutting out |
| past participle | nutted out |
| past | nutted out |
Origin of nut out
From nut (“(slang) the head”) + out, referring to thinking or working something out in one’s head.
From nut (“(slang) crazy person”) + out.
Questions about nut out
- What does nut out mean?
- Nut out means to find a solution (for something), especially in a group discussion; also, to work out the finer details (of something).
- How do you use nut out in a sentence?
- In ’86 Frank helped Ian [Roberts] nut out his first contract—$26,000 a year—[…]
- What part of speech is nut out?
- Nut out is a verb.
- How do you pronounce nut out?
- Nut out is pronounced /ˈnʌt aʊt/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of nut out?
- The past tense of nut out is nutted out.
Words near nut out in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: nut out (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-nut out.ogg.
Cite this entry: “nut out.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nut_out. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.