bannut

English

Etymology

From Middle English bannenote.

Noun

bannut (plural bannuts)

1. (dialectal, England) The English walnut.
   • 1898, “BANNUT, sb.”, in Joseph Wright, editor, The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volumes I (A–C), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC, page 158, column 1:

     Wor. They picks they stones off the common, as small as bannuts (H.K.). w.Wor.¹ Sarmints is ahl like bannuts; d’reckly yŭ opens ’um, yŭ knaows w’ats in ’um. […] se.Wor.¹ The fust time as ever I knaowed ’im wus w’en ’e wus took up fur stalin’ bannits. […] We cannot tell how many bannuts there be, till we beat the trees (A.B.); Ellis Pronun. (1889) V. 66. ne.Glo. The old man … forbade the young fellow’s visits, bluntly declaring that he might go and ‘bad the bannuts’ somewhere else, Household Wds. (1885) 141. […] Som. A woman, a spaunel, and a bannut tree, The mooar you bate ’em the better they be, W. & J. Gl. (1873);

   • 1912, Ella Mary Leather, The Folk-Lore of Herefordshire: Collected from Oral and Printed Sources, page 241:

     Crack nuts and bannuts (walnuts), / Say the bells of St. Weonard’s.

   • 1913, Gerald Poynton Mander, The History of the Wolverhampton Grammar School, Wolverhampton: […] Steens Limited at the Old Grammar School Press, page 338:

     In 1810-11 the tenant of Rushock Court at his own expense, planted: / 220 strong pears at 3/- / 56 pear stocks at 2/- / 104 pears at 1/6 / 114 stocks at 2/- / 60 crabs at 1/6 / 41 crabs at 1/- / 26 damsons at 1/6 / 14 walnuts at 2/- / 2 Bannuts at 3/- / 6 Spanish Chestnuts at 1/- /—total with expenses of planting £79 2s. 0d.

   • 1917 January, Frances Pitt, “The Education of “The Coon””, in The Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, volume XLVII, number 258, London, page 84:

     One of the workmen remarked that “He be so like a Christian you canna pass him without givin’ him summat, an’ now I gives him the bannuts* he runs to the door to meet me when he sees me a-comin’.” […] * “Bannuts”—local word for walnuts.