to be dead nuts on
Preserved but no longer current.
To be very much pleased with, highly gratified with. My aunt is awful nuts on Marcus Aurelius; I beg your pardon, you don't know the phrase; my aunt makes Marcus Aurelius her Bible. — WM. BLACK: Princess of Thule, xi.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “to be dead nuts on” mean?
To be very much pleased with, highly gratified with. My aunt is awful nuts on Marcus Aurelius; I beg your pardon, you don't know the phrase; my aunt makes Marcus Aurelius her Bible. — WM. BLACK: Princess of Thule, xi.
Is “to be dead nuts on” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.