Also 6 ernut(e.
1. The roundish tuber of an umbelliferous plant (Bunium flexuosum, including B. Bulbocastanum), called also Earth-chestnut and Pig-nut.
875. Charter, in Cod. Dipl., III. 399 (Bosw.). Of ðam cumbe in eorþnutena þorn.
1551. Turner, Herbal, I. D iij b. Apios is called also Chamebalanos in greke … and the same semeth to me to be called in Englishe, an ernut, or an erthnut.
1597. Gerard, Herbal, II. ccccxxxi. (1633), 1064. Earth nut, Earth chest nut, or Kipper nut.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., II. s.v. Sallet, Earth-Nuts, when the Rind is pared off, are eaten raw by Country People.
1784. Cowper, Task, V. 90. Daws forsake the fields, Where neither grub … nor earth-nut … Repays their labour.
1879. Jefferies, Wild Life in S. Co., 331. The earth-nut, pig-nut, or ground-nut, as it is variously called.
2. Applied variously to other plants, as the truffle (Tuber), the ARACHIS, the Œnanthe pimpinelloides, and the Heath Pea (Lathyrus macrorrhizus).
1548. Turner, Names of Herbes (1881), 17. Astragalus … may be called in english peaserthnut.
1644. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 83. A dish of Truffles, which is a certain earth-nut.
1713. Petiver, in Phil. Trans., XXVIII. 62. Four leaved Earth-Nut.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., Gesse, a plant of which there are two sorts, one … cultivated … and the other the wild one in Latin Chamælalanus, called by some Earth-Nut.
a. 1854. Phytologist, III. 260 (Britten). Œnanthe pimpinelloides, L. The children eat the tubercles under the name of earth-nuts.
