Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In botany, drooping or nodding; hanging with the apex downward: applied to stems, flower-clusters, etc.
  • In entomology, sloping: said of a surface or part forming an obtuse angle with the parts behind it, or with the axis of the body: as, a nutant head.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Nodding; having the top bent downward.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective of bodily organs and flowers nodding, drooping

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From nūtāns ("nodding"), present active participle of nūtō ("nod, signal").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word nutant.

Examples

  • Corbulo vix ferret tot vasa ingentia, tot res inpositas capiti, quas recto vertice portat servulus infelix et cursu ventilat ignem. scinduntur tunicae sartae modo, longa coruscat serraco veniente abies, atque altera pinum plaustra vehunt, nutant alte populoque minantur (iii.

    Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Harold Edgeworth Butler 1914

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "The old bandstand stood empty, the equestrian statue of the turbulent Huerta rode under the nutant trees wild-eyed evermore..."

    - Lowry, Under the Volcano

    June 25, 2011