A kind of nut growing in a bur like a chestnut.
1624. [These fruits the Virginians] call Chechinquamins, which they esteeme a great daintie.—Capt. John Smith, ‘Virginia,’ p. 353. (N.E.D.)
1705. Even these places are stored with Chesnuts, Chinkapins, Acorns of the Shrub-Oak.—Beverley, ‘Virginia,’ ii. 8.
1705. Chinkapins have a Taste something like a Chesnut, and grow in a Husk or Bur.—Id., ii. 16.
1775. Smallest fagus (or dwarf chesnut) having the fruit in bunches, and contained singly in a prickly pod, vulgo chinkapin.—B. Romans, ‘Florida,’ p. 19.
1799. She remembered chinquoimines, chestnuts, walnuts, &c., where the principal buildings in Philadelphia now stands.—Farmer’s Register (Greensburg, Pa.), Nov. 30.
1801. Queen Mab, who was born in the kernel of a chinkapin.—Lancaster (Pa.) Journal, July 18.
1816. The chinquipin-bushes, which in the fall bear a nut little inferior to the filbert, and which fattens the gluttonous herds of swine, which run free.—Henry C. Knight (‘Arthur Singleton’), ‘Letters from the South and West,’ p. 61 (Boston, 1824).
1818. It is named the castanea pumila in William Darby’s ‘Emigrant’s Guide,’ p. 80.
1826. The rivers that run through these level and swampy pine forests, are called, in the Indian language, “Bogue,” with some attribute denoting the character of the stream; for instance, “Bogue Chitto,” “Bogue Falaya,” denoting the river of laurels, or chincopins.—T. Flint, ‘Recollections,’ p. 317.
1827. Chinquapin. Castanea nana—dry ridges, edge of hammocks, nuts fine.—John L. Williams, ‘View of West Florida,’ p. 40 (Phila.).
1838. Look at Cornelia’s face! It is as brown as a chinquapin.—Caroline Gilman, ‘Recollections of a Southern Matron,’ p. 47.
1845. If that one on this side didn’t have whiskers, I hope I may never see chinkapin time agin, dadfetch me!—W. T. Thompson, ‘Chronicles of Pineville,’ p. 65 (Phila.).
1851. A deep box, containing ‘black’ and ‘shag-bark’ walnuts, chestnuts, chinquepins, and hazel-nuts or filberts.—Knick. Mag., xxxvii. 183 (Feb.).
1855. The tasseled chinkapin perfumes the hill.—A. B. Meek, ‘The Red Eagle’ (N.Y.).
1856. Always, when she was a gal—whether it was eggs, or berries, or chincapins, or what—it was Miss Harrit’s nature to get and to keep; and when she got old, dat all turned to money.—H. B. Stowe, ‘Dred,’ chap. xvi.
