_Nugget_ (Vol. vi., pp. 171. 281.; Vol. vii., pp. 143. 272.).--FURVUS is
persuaded that the word _nugget_ is of home growth, and has sprung from
a root existing under various forms throughout the dialects at present
in use. The radical appears to be _snag_, _knag_, or _nag_ (_Knoge_,
Cordylus, cf. _Knuckle_), a protuberance, knot, lump; being a term
chiefly applied to knots in trees, rough pieces of wood, &c., and in its
derivatives strongly expressive of (so to speak) misshapen _lumpiness_.
Every one resident in the midland counties must be acquainted with the
word _nog_, applied to the wooden ball used in the game of "shinney,"
the corresponding term of which, _nacket_, holds in parts of Scotland,
where also a short, corpulent person is called a _nuget_.
So, in Essex, _nig_ signifies a piece; a _snag_ is a well-known word
across the Atlantic; _nogs_ are ninepins in the north of England; a
_noggin_ of bread is equivalent to a _hunch_ in the midland counties;
and in the neighbourhood of the Parret and Exe the word becomes _nug_,
bearing (besides its usual acceptation) the meaning of _knot_, _lump_.
This supposed derivation is by no means weakened by the fact, that
miners and others have gone to the "diggins" from parts at no great
distance from the last-mentioned district; and we may therefore,
although the radical is pretty generally diffused over the kingdom,
attribute its better known application to _them_.
It is no objection that the word, in many of its forms, is used of rough
pieces of _wood_, as instances show that it merely refers to a _rudis
indigestaque moles_ characteristic of any article in question.