Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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About this entry:
First published 1965 (SND Vol. VI). Includes material from the 1976 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

NUGGET, n. Also nuget.

Sc. usages:

1. A short, stout-bellied person (s.Sc. 1825 Jam.); in Heriot's Hospital: a term of opprobrium for a thick-headed boy; the head itself. Also in Australian Eng.Edb. 1898 J. Baillie Walter Crighton 63, 169, 145:
Oh, the sleepy nugget, let us gie him a muggin'. . . . The nugget's cakie, an' as big a sumph as is in the “Wark” . . . That upper cut was a lucky one. The bully never raised his “nugget” again.

2. A striped glass marble (Edb. 1960). Poss. orig. a different word, from Eng. knuck(le), a shooting marble.