nutcracker

[Eng. nut, and cracker.] 1. Ord. Lang.: An implement with jaws for cracking hard-shell nuts, such as hazel nuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts, . The short arm of the lever is pivoted to the moving jaw, and it has fulcrum bear ing in shackles which are pivoted to the fixed jaw and curved backward to give acce to the jaws. 2. Ornith.: The genus Nucifraga, and espec. N. caryocatactes, common in southern Europe, a visitor to the northern portions of the continent; flocks have been seen in Switzerland. They feed on the seeds of pine and beech, and on nuts, which they fix in some convenient crevice, and hammer with the beak till the kernel is exposed. The plu mage is of different shades of brown, studded with long white spots. Clark's Nutcracker is N. colum biana.