A peanut or similar legume that develops underground, growing in pods beneath the soil surface.
From ground + nut. Named descriptively because the seeds develop in pods that mature in the soil, unlike most nut trees. The peanut (Arachis hypogaea) grows inverted into the earth after flowering.
Groundnuts are weird because the plant flowers above ground but then bends down and pushes its developing fruit underground—it's one of nature's strangest gardening tricks, and it's why peanuts aren't actually nuts at all.
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