nuts and bolts

noun
the essential or basic aspects: to learn the nuts and bolts of a new job.
Origin:
1955–60

Related forms
nuts-and-bolts, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
nuts and bolts
 
—pl n
informal the essential or practical details

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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00:10
Nuts and bolts is always a great word to know.
So is gobo. Does it mean:
a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
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Slang Dictionary

nuts and bolts definition


  1. n.
    the mundane workings of something; the basics of something. : She's got a lot of good, general ideas, but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of getting something done, she's no good.
  2. n.
    the subject of psychology in college. : Tom is flunking nuts and bolts because he won't participate in the required “experiments.”
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Example sentences
Algebra is the basic nuts and bolts of math, but calculus is the beauty of it.
It starts with the nuts and bolts of scientific publishing.
Until recently, scientists understood little about the actual nuts and bolts of
  dreaming.
The teeth securely grip a variety of sizes of metric and conventional nuts and
  bolts.
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