noun

• 1A device for cracking nuts.

  ‘The collection includes a ferocious Minotaur, the mythical half-human, half-bull, made from welded spoons, nutcrackers and windscreen wipers.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘A rope-tow's a generous interpretation of what it really is; it's fondly called a nutcracker because the device that hangs around your waist clamps onto the rope in the same way a nut would be cracked open.’
  • ‘Scarborough Sea Life Centre is building a giant tank to accommodate 12 ‘baby’ Japanese Spider Crabs - whose infant pincers are as big as nutcrackers.’
  • ‘All nutcrackers are forbidden on the premises as these items have been found to be a potential security risk and safety hazard in the hands of inadequately trained personnel.’
  • ‘When I think of my professional life, I think of working inside the angle of a giant, open nutcracker.’
  • ‘There's a Bible story which describes the use of the more gentle nutcracker principle that could be applied to the present situation.’
  • ‘Sighing intensely she looked at the first paper trying to inscribe over the walnut oil stains that had been left by Nick's little nutcracker joke.’
  • ‘But because the ligaments are so tight, the jaws couldn't stretch very far, and soon the ligaments would begin acting like the fulcrum at the hinged end of the nutcracker.’
  • ‘That nutcrackers existed in prehistoric times makes sense: nuts were presumably just as nutritious then - and as maddeningly hard to break open without tools - as they are now.’
  • ‘Generally, a girl, Clara (Mary, Made or Masha in other versions), is given a nutcracker by her godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, at a Christmas Eve party arranged by her parents.’
  • ‘This classic tale, with its evergreen Tchaikovsky score, tells the story of a girl who receives a nutcracker as a Christmas gift from her uncle, who is known for his fascination with the enchanted.’
  • ‘This is not a primitive Walkman but a pseudophone, clamped like a nutcracker on the skull of its inventor, psychologist Paul T. Young, Ph.D.’
  • ‘The nutcracker is then transformed into a handsome prince who whisks her away to the Kingdom of Sweets, where the Sugar Plum Fairy stages a grand divertissement with them as honoured guests.’
  • ‘Joey stood completely erect with his chin up and his arms pressed against his sides firmly, looking very stiff indeed, like a wooden nutcracker of sorts.’
  • ‘It's the nut against the nutcracker; the outcome is foreordained.’
  • ‘Crack about 18 of the apricot stones open with a nutcracker, to get the almonds inside.’
  • ‘Some people get the same pleasure with a nutcracker and a bowl of walnuts, but, believe me, those people are not reading in bed.’
  • ‘She knew that he kept a hand nutcracker in his desk drawer and on more occasions then one she had thought about stealing it from the desk.’
  • ‘You need a nutcracker, a large bib and a bowl of warm melted butter.’
  • ‘The middle aged motorist shut his eyes and squeezed them like the jaws of a nutcracker.’

• 2A crow that feeds on the seeds of conifers, found widely in Eurasia and in western North America.

  Genus Nucifraga, family Corvidae: the Eurasian spotted nutcracker (N. caryocatactes), with white-spotted brown plumage, and the North American Clark's nutcracker (N. columbiana), with pale gray and black plumage

  ‘Balda started studying pinyon jays and Clark's nutcrackers in the late 1960s.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The Clark's nutcracker - which also has a well-developed hippocampus - can pinpoint thousands of scattered food caches up to nine months after storing them.’
  • ‘The explorers introduced to science Clark's nutcracker and Lewis's woodpecker, as well as the sage grouse and the lesser Canada goose.’
  • ‘There are two sub-families: The Corvinae includes crows, ravens, nutcrackers, jackdaws, and rooks, while jays, magpies, and choughs compose the Garrulinae.’
  • ‘Whitebark pine provides an important food source for grizzlies, Clark's nutcracker, and red squirrels (See ‘Stalwart Species,’ American Forests, Summer 2002.)’