horse chestnutn.
1. The hard smooth shining brown seed or ‘nut’ of the tree described in sense 2.
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the world > plants > particular plants > trees and shrubs > tree or shrub groups > horse-chestnut tree and allies > [noun] > nut
horse chestnut1611
buckeye1785
chestnut1842
conker1847
1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Chastaigne chevaline, the horse Chestnut.
1698 London Gaz. No. 3366/4 A parcel of Horse Chesnuts lately brought from beyond Sea..to be sold by Mr. Edw. Fuller.
1789 ‘P. Pindar’ Expostulatory Odes xvi. 53 On hard horse chesnuts make them dine and sup.
18.. Chapter on Logic 40 in Bell Stand. Elocut. (1883) 471 Down fell A fine horse-chestnut in its prickly shell.
2. A large ornamental tree, Æsculus Hippocastanum (N.O. Sapindaceæ), probably a native of Asia, said to have been introduced into England c1550; it bears large digitate leaves, and upright conical clusters of showy flowers; the fruit resembles the edible chestnut, consisting of a soft thick prickly husk enclosing two or three large seeds of a coarse bitter taste. The name is also extended to some American species of Æsculus and the allied genus Pavia, usually called buckeye.
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the world > plants > particular plants > trees and shrubs > tree or shrub groups > horse-chestnut tree and allies > [noun]
horse chestnut1597
poison root1712
Pavia1731
buckeye1763
buckwood1787
Ohio buckeye1810
sweet buckeye1815
chestnut1842
1597 J. Gerard Herball iii. 1254 Called..in English Horse Chestnut; for that the people of the East countries do with the fruit thereof cure their horses of the cough..and such like diseases.
1664 J. Evelyn Sylva vii. §4 The Horse-Chessnut..bears a most glorious flower.
1785 T. Martyn tr. J.-J. Rousseau Lett. Elements Bot. xix. 262 The form of the Horse-Chesnut is grand, the pyramids of flowers beautiful.
1866 J. Lindley & T. Moore Treasury Bot. II. 853/2 P[avia] rubra, often called Red-flowered Horse~chestnut, is a slender-growing tree..from the mountains of Virginia and Carolina.
1884 W. Miller Dict. Eng. Names Plants Pavia (Æsculus), Buck-eye, Smooth-fruited Horse-Chestnut.
Draft additions June 2014
horse chestnut leaf-miner n. a small leaf-mining moth, Cameraria ohridella (family Gracillariidae), the larvae of which cause significant browning of horse chestnut leaves.This moth has spread rapidly across Europe from its origin in the Balkans.
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1996 Növényvédelem 32 444 (heading) The horse-chestnut leaf miner.
2005 M.-L. Tello et al. in C.C. Konijnendijk et al. Urban Forests & Trees xii. 360 Recent uncontrolled spread of the horse chestnut leaf miner, C. ohridella throughout Europe.
2013 Independent (Nexis) 30 Jan. 24 The horse chestnut leaf-miner moth from the Balkans is wreaking havoc with our conker trees.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1899; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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