peanut

American  

[pee-nuht, -nuht] / ˈpiˌnʌt, -nət /

noun

• peanuts
  plural

1. the pod or the enclosed edible seed of the plant, Arachis hypogaea, of the legume family: the pod is forced underground in growing, where it ripens.

2. the plant itself.

3. any small or insignificant person or thing.

4. peanuts,

   1. Informal. a very small amount of money.

      working for peanuts.

   2. Slang. barbiturates.

   3. small pieces of Styrofoam used as a packing material.

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adjective

1. of or relating to the peanut or peanuts.

2. made with or from peanuts.

3. Informal. small, insignificant, or petty.

peanut British  

/ ˈpiːˌnʌt /

noun

1. See also peanuts

   1. a leguminous plant, Arachis hypogaea, of tropical America: widely cultivated for its edible seeds. The seed pods are forced underground where they ripen See also hog peanut

   2. Also called: goober, goober pea, groundnut, monkey nut. the edible nutlike seed of this plant, used for food and as a source of oil

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• peanutty
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• peanuts
  plural

Etymology

Origin of peanut

An Americanism dating back to 1790–1800; pea ¹ + nut

Explanation

A peanut is a plant that grows pods containing seeds that are also known as peanuts. You may think of peanuts as nuts, but they're actually legumes. Despite the deceptive name peanut, this plant is more closely related to peas than it is to almonds and hazelnuts. Peanuts are an important food crop around the world, in the form of oil, flour, peanut butter, and roasted, whole peanuts. Peanuts were originally called "ground nuts," and despite their popularity, they're also known for being inexpensive — thus peanuts also informally means "a very small amount of money."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

peanut peanuts

On week one of the competition, Mahir landed star baker after he stunned TV judges Nigella Lawson and Paul Hollywood with his peanut and caramel chocolate stout cake.

From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026

Most of it comes out of the ground with the consistency of cold peanut butter.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026

Larry, who’s been snapping up South Florida property the way the rest of us buy peanut butter pretzels at Trader Joe’s, won’t feel any hardship.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026

It will not noticeably change the reading on a bathroom scale, and it would not affect how much peanut butter is required to produce a 16-ounce container.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 20, 2026

I quickly add, ’cause he gasped, “I’m weird too. We go together like peanut butter and potato chips.”

From "The Manifestor Prophecy" by Angie Thomas

I covered myself in bits of cardboard, packing tape and foam peanuts and overdid my makeup with several coats of mascara and thick black eyeliner.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026

Caicedo eked out a living by selling peanuts and other products on the street, earning just enough to pay for a room that cost around $4.50 a day.

From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026

The plant material included cultivated wheat, carrots, maize, bananas and peanuts.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 4, 2026

Put this all together and farmers — mainly large-scale row-crop producers of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice and peanuts — are already set to receive roughly $55 billion from the U.S.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026

In December 1944, Lulu assembled a truckload of rice, beans, sugar, peanuts, canned goods, salted fish, and candies for the prisoners of the Los Baños internment camp.

From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly

Related Words

• groundnut