Is a peanut a nut?

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Nope. Peanuts are technically legumes, which makes them much more closely related to lentils, peas, and beans than to hazelnuts, and other true nuts.

The reason peanuts suffer from an identity crisis is because they are used in the same ways nuts are in our diets even though they are not nuts in the pure botanical sense. They also have characterisitics of both legumes and nuts. 

What's the difference between the two groups? Legumes have edible seeds enclosed in (and often attached to) a pod that splits along both sides. Picture a pea pod.

Nuts, on the other hand, are essentially the seed and fruit together. Nuts usually only have one seed (on rare occassions two) and don't open on their own.

Peanuts are legumes because they have a pod and are grown underground instead of on bushes and trees (as nuts are), according to a spokesperson from The Peanut Institute. 

In fact, you may be surprised to learn that many of the foods we consider nuts aren't technically nuts. Brazil nuts and pine nuts are considered seeds. Almonds are the seeds of drupes (fleshy fruits with a hard pit that encloses the seed). Pistachios, cashews, and coconuts are also not true nuts.

For everyday use it's probably easiest to just go with the broad culinary definition of a nut (a large seed that comes from a shell) and leave it that!