Nug

Nug is North American slang for an individual, well-formed bud of cannabis flower. It carries no distinct regulatory meaning and is identical to "bud" for the purposes of testing, taxation, and inventory tracking. Dispensary parlance uses "nug" as connotative shorthand for aesthetic quality — visual density, trichome frost, a tight calyx-to-leaf ratio, and overall curb appeal on the retail shelf. The slang has migrated into concentrate terminology as "nug run," describing extracts produced exclusively from whole nugs rather than trim. Plural forms ("nugs," "nuggets") are used interchangeably in casual speech but do not appear in regulatory text. The diminutive "nugget" predates cannabis-specific usage and borrows the imagery of a small, dense, valuable object — gold nuggets, chicken nuggets — now applied to a dense, trichome-covered chunk of flower. → See also: Bud, Nug run, Shake