Large brown nuts that grow inside spiky cases on chestnut trees, or stories or jokes that are old and repetitive.
From Old French 'chasteine,' from Latin 'castanea,' possibly from Greek 'kastanon' or a place name. The 'old story' meaning comes from the 1880s, derived from a play where a character repeats the same story.
Chestnuts went from being one of Europe's most important food crops to nearly extinct due to a fungal blight in the 1900s—thousands of trees died. Today, 'chestnut' meaning an old joke is more common than the actual nut itself, which is a beautiful example of how words can outlive their original purpose.
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