Difference between a seed an a nut?

[darragh]

Anybody know the difference between a seed and a nut? after all they both produce new plant life.

[kempie]

Seed...

a. A ripened plant ovule containing an embryo.
b. A propagative part of a plant, as a tuber or spore.
c. The seed-bearing stage of a plant.

Nut...

a. An indehiscent, hard-shelled, one-loculated, one-seeded fruit, such as an acorn or hazelnut.
b. A seed borne within a fruit having a hard shell, as in the peanut, almond, or walnut.
c. The kernel of any of these.

[gastwo]

I wonder how many others had to look up the word indehescent...

[gastwo]

Whoops. Indehiscent.

[Dom Tuk]

In the days when we were young and evil and in school i recall after a botany class we named one of the girls in our class an 'indehiscent bean'. She ofcourse did not take kindly to it. I would like to publicly apologise to her if she is on AB. It was not a nice thing to say to anyone.

[Octavius]

What's indecent about a nut?

A seed is defined as a "plant structure (as a spore or small dry fruit) capable of producing a new plant." So a seed is anything that can produce a new plant.

A nut is defined partially as a "a hard-shelled dry fruit (as a peanut in the shell) or seed (as a Brazil nut) with an inner kernel." (There's more to the definition, but that's the important part.)

From reading both definitions, you could conclude that nuts are seeds that have hard outer shells. So a nut always contains a seed, but a seed isn't necessarily a nut.