Other forms: nuggets
A nugget is a rounded lump of pure metal found in the ground. A gold nugget, a nugget of gold, find a nugget.
Gold occurs naturally in nuggets because it does not corrode, which is why it can be found lying loose in a stream after everything around it has weathered away. The largest ever found weighed about seventy kilograms. Figuratively, a nugget is a small valuable piece of something: a nugget of information. Note chicken nugget, which is a much later and less romantic use.
1nounnuggetA rounded lump of pure metal found in the ground.
“The miner shouted with joy when he found a gold nugget in his pan.”
2nounsmallA small valuable piece of something.
“The talk was long, but it contained a few useful nuggets of advice.”
nugget is a lump.
The origin is uncertain — perhaps from a southern English dialect word nug, a lump, or from a rebracketing of an ingot. It first appears in the Australian gold rushes.
Proto-Indo-European
*kneh₂-
Proto-Germanic
*hnōjaną — to smooth, join together
English
nudge
English, today
nugget
Built from
unknown, first attested in reference to animals & people in Scotland and in reference to ore chunks in Australia. Possibly from southern English nug (“lump, block”) or Scottish knudge/nudge + -et or from rebracketed alteration of an ingot as a ni(n)got. nudge Circa 17th century, perhaps of gmq - origin, related to Norwegian nugge, nyggje (“to push, rub, shove”), Icelandic nugga (“to rub, massage”), from the root of Proto-Germanic hnōjaną (“to smooth, join together”), from Proto-Indo-European kneh₂- (compare Ancient Greek κνάω (“to scratch, scrape”), source of English acnestis). Compare also Scots nodge (“to push, poke, nudge”), knidge (“to push, squeeze”), gnidge (“to rub, press, squeeze, bruise”), and knudge (“to squeeze, press down with the knuckles”), stq Nukke, Nuk (“a sudden push”), Middle Low German nucke, nücke, gnücke (“a sudden push, shock, impetus”). Compare also dialectal nuch (“to tremble”), Middle English nuchen (“to tremble”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA