1034: nugget Oct 8, 2017

One of the fun aspects of etymology is that while they often can be presented as a matter of fact for certain words, there is still room for deliberation. The word 'nugget', for instance, has an unclear origin. Though it is believed that the word came about in the mid-19th century either way, one theory states that the word came from a misinterpretation of the word 'ingot', which is is fairly reasonable on account of both words' association to gold. Another, perhaps more accepted theory is that it comes from a dialectal variation of the word 'nug' meaning "lump" from Southwestern American English. It is then possible that 'nugget' could follow the pattern of 'jacket' and 'pocket' and others with the diminutive '-et' suffix.