Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A dicotyledonous-leafed tree of the genus Æsculus.
- noun The nut or fruit of the horse-chestnut.
- noun In entomology, a geometrid moth, Pachycnemia hippocastanaria: an English collector’ name.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) The large nutlike seed of a species of Æsculus (
Æsculus Hippocastanum ), formerly ground, and fed to horses, whence the name. The seed is not considered edible by humans. - noun (Bot.) The tree itself (
Aesculus hippocastanum ), which was brought from Constantinople in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and is now common in the temperate zones of both hemispheres; it has palmate leaves and large clusters of white to red flowers followed by brown shiny inedible seeds. The native American species is also calledbuckeye andconker .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
species oftrees of the genus Aesculus as it is known inEurasia , common in thetemperate zones of bothhemispheres . - noun The large
nutlike seed of these trees.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the inedible nutlike seed of the horse chestnut
- noun tree having palmate leaves and large clusters of white to red flowers followed by brown shiny inedible seeds
Etymologies
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Examples
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I kept to the edge of the lawn under a leafy horse-chestnut tree.
Exit the Actress Priya Parmar 2011
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Apart from blights poxing horse-chestnut and sycamore leaves, the yellowing of many beech and the crispy curling of some ash were due to drought.
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Possibly not; but the horse-chestnut trees, the telephone poles, the porches, the green hedges recede to a calm point that in my subjective geography is still the center of the world.
john updike | march 18, 1932 – january 27, 2009 « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009
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I pulled my hat lower and took a half step back under the shade of a horse-chestnut tree.
Exit the Actress Priya Parmar 2011
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Possibly not; but the horse-chestnut trees, the telephone poles, the porches, the green hedges recede to a calm point that in my subjective geography is still the center of the world.
January « 2009 « poetry dispatch & other notes from the underground 2009
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I kept to the edge of the lawn under a leafy horse-chestnut tree.
Exit the Actress Priya Parmar 2011
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We were seated in the garden under the shade of a horse-chestnut tree on what felt like a summer afternoon.
Exit the Actress Priya Parmar 2011
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Long shadows from the horse-chestnut tree in the front yard trail up the red-bricked walls.
bolt the door James Claffey 2011
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I pulled my hat lower and took a half step back under the shade of a horse-chestnut tree.
Exit the Actress Priya Parmar 2011
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We were seated in the garden under the shade of a horse-chestnut tree on what felt like a summer afternoon.
Exit the Actress Priya Parmar 2011
hernesheir commented on the word horse-chestnut
A good street tree in areas of North America where it can thrive, since it resists poorer soils and pollution from the incessant traffic of our time. The spiny fruit husks and large, beautiful, mahogany-colored seeds do, however, constitute a "maintenance problem" for those who believe lawns and roadsides must needs be immaculate with nary a leaf, fruit, seed or bit of seasonal mast.
March 16, 2011
bilby commented on the word horse-chestnut
Plenty in Europe too. Love 'em. I am not an immaculate roadsider.
March 16, 2011
yarb commented on the word horse-chestnut
One of my very favourite trees - shady, strong, and genial, with that exquisite contrast between the spikiness of the husk and the smoothness of the seed. And fond childhood memories of scouring the lanes and fields for prime conker material.
March 16, 2011
yarb commented on the word horse-chestnut
See also horse chestnut.
March 16, 2011
Prolagus commented on the word horse-chestnut
ippocastano in Italian.
March 16, 2011
gangerh commented on the word horse-chestnut
I have a huge horse-chestnut tree in my back garden. It overhangs the road.
It has a Tree Preservation Order on it, which means that it cannot even be pruned without Local Authority permission.
Sadly, I am currently discussing the felling of it with the the powers that be as it is suffering from Bleeding Canker, which will eventually kill it off. Meanwhile, it is becoming prone to shedding limbs, and is therefore a danger.
The disease is sweeping the UK having moved over from Continental Europe.
A huge proportion of the horse-chestnut tree population of the UK is being lost to the disease.
March 16, 2011
hernesheir commented on the word horse-chestnut
I'm sorry that playing conkers didn't ever take hold in the US. Instead, we got clackers.
March 17, 2011
yarb commented on the word horse-chestnut
Clackers is new to me - looks like an executive stress toy! It's got none of the naked aggression and potential for embarrassment that conkers has. But my favourite thing about conkers was nurturing a winner, just as a promoter guides the career of a champion boxer - you'd train it, and hype it, and only bring it out when you thought the potential glory to be gained not only outweighed the risk of defeat, but was substantial in and of itself - which was increasingly rarely. In the meantime you'd be throwing your one-ers and two-ers into battle, trying whether they had what it took.
And there was the whole technical side, which others really got into, with dousing and baking and vinegaring, and different ways of drilling and different kinds of string - but in my experience, none of that alchemy really helped; in fact a good hard conker needed no treatment to beat any number of treated ones.
March 17, 2011
dontcry commented on the word horse-chestnut
Buckeye
March 19, 2011
hernesheir commented on the word horse-chestnut
Genus Aesculus. Eurasian species are known as horse-chestnuts; North American species are called buckeyes. The genus, along with those of the maples (Acer, Dipteronia) are now included within the large tropical family Sapindaceae, the soapberry family, based upon molecular and genetic data in conjunction with morphological characters.
March 19, 2011