Meaning & use
wooden nutmeg
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountableAmericanold-fashionedfigurative
A fake nutmeg carved from wood and sold as real, or more broadly any clever fraud or swindle.
Grammar: Countable: one wooden nutmeg, several wooden nutmegs.
Patterns
- sell someone a wooden nutmeg
- a wooden nutmeg scheme
The traveling salesman was accused of selling wooden nutmegs to trusting farmers.
In local history, the wooden nutmeg stands for any trick that cheats honest buyers.
The phrase 'wooden nutmeg' comes from a nineteenth-century story about fake spices.
nouncountableAmericaninformalold-fashioned
A nickname for a person from Connecticut, especially one seen as shrewd or tricky in business.
Grammar: Countable and usually capitalized in this sense: a Wooden Nutmeg, the Wooden Nutmegs.
Patterns
- a Wooden Nutmeg from Connecticut
Old newspapers sometimes called Connecticut traders 'Wooden Nutmegs.'
He joked that his Yankee grandfather was a true Wooden Nutmeg.
Word forms
| plural | wooden nutmegs |
|---|
Common combinations
- sell a wooden nutmeg
- The con artist tried to sell a wooden nutmeg to the crowd.
- wooden nutmeg story
- The wooden nutmeg story is a favorite in Connecticut folklore.
- a batch of wooden nutmegs
- The shop was caught with a batch of wooden nutmegs in the back room.
- Connecticut wooden nutmeg
- The Connecticut wooden nutmeg legend spread through the whole region.
Synonyms and how they differ
- fraud
- Fraud is the general modern word for cheating someone; wooden nutmeg is a colorful historical term for a specific kind of fake goods.
- swindle
- A swindle is a whole dishonest scheme, while a wooden nutmeg is the fake item used in one.
- counterfeit
- Counterfeit describes a fake made to look real, often money or goods; wooden nutmeg is an old American phrase for a carved fake spice.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: wooden nutmeg or nutmeg?
wooden nutmeg vs nutmeg
Nutmeg is the real spice; a wooden nutmeg is a fake carved from wood and used as a symbol of fraud.
Practice
What does 'wooden nutmeg' most often refer to in American history?
Choose one answer.
'Wooden nutmeg' means a fake nutmeg carved from wood and sold as real, symbolizing a swindle. A real spice or a grinding tool would not be called wooden in this phrase.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “wooden nutmeg”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.