# nook

Pronunciation: US say "NUUK" /nʊk/; UK

## Noun

1. A small corner formed where two walls meet, or a small recess in a room.
   - Simple: A small corner of a room where two walls meet, or a small space set back into a wall.
   - _The kitchen has a breakfast nook with a built-in bench under the window._
   - _An old armchair filled the nook beneath the slanted attic ceiling._
2. A hidden or secluded place, especially one used as a quiet retreat.
   - Simple: A quiet, hidden place where you can get away from others.
   - _The inn is tucked away in a wooded nook at the end of a long dirt road._
   - _Every village in the valley seemed to have some quiet nook where couples could meet unseen._
3. A recess or hollow in the land, or a small sheltered cove along a shore.
   - Simple: A hollow place in rocks or land, or a small, sheltered bay.
   - _Ferns grew thickly in the shady nooks along the stream bank._
   - _The fishing boats rode out the gale in a narrow nook of the coast._
6. A former English unit of land area, first a quarter of a yardland and later 12½ or 20 acres.
   - Simple: An old English measure for an area of land, later set at 12½ or 20 acres.
   - _The manor records show that each tenant held a nook of land in the open fields._
   - _His will left his son two nooks of arable land and a cottage._

## Verb

4. To withdraw into a nook, tucking oneself away in a corner.
   - Simple: To go and settle in a small, tucked-away corner.
   - _The two old friends nooked by the fire, talking long after the other guests had gone._
   - _Guests who wanted to escape the music could nook in the little library off the hall._
5. To place something in a nook, fitting it into a corner or recess.
   - Simple: To put or fit something into a small corner.
   - _A small washroom had been nooked into the space beneath the staircase._
   - _Designers of small apartments like to nook storage into every spare corner._

## Noun

7. A corner of a piece of land, or an angled piece of land, especially one jutting into neighboring land. *(archaic, Northern England)*
   - Simple: A corner of a field or piece of land, often one that sticks out into other land.
   - _The parish boundary ran along the old wall as far as the east nook of the moor._
   - _A narrow nook of pasture ran between the two farms, and both families claimed it._

## Origin

From Middle English noke, nok (“nook, corner, angle”), of uncertain origin. It is perhaps from Old English hnoc, hnocc (“hook, angle”), from Proto-Germanic *hnukkaz (“a bend”), in which case it is related to Danish nok (“hook”), Icelandic hnokki (“hook”) and Dutch nok (“ridge”); it is also cognate with Scots neuk (“corner”).

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/nook (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).