nugget

1 a small piece or quantity of food nuggets of beef in the chow mein fried chicken nuggets Synonyms bite, mouthful, nibble, morsel, taste, tidbit (also titbit)Related Words collop, medallion, noisette; nosh, snack; appetizer, canapé, hors d'oeuvre; bit, chew, crumb, dab, dribble, driblet, fleck, hint, mote, nubbin, particle, pinch, scrap, scruple, shred, smidgen (also smidgeon or smidgin or smidge), snip, snippet, speck, spot, sprinkling, suspicion, tittle, touch, trace; dash, drop; lap, lick; gulp, swallow, swig

2 a small uneven mass a nugget of gold Synonyms blob, chunk, clod, clot, clump, dollop, glob, gob, gobbet, hunk, knob, nub, nubble, lump, wadRelated Words bead, drop, globule; block, body, bulk; particle, piece, portion; bit, chip, crumb, granule, morsel, nubbin, patch, scrap

3 a very small piece a seemingly inconsequential nugget of information that proved to be the key to cracking the case Synonyms atom, crumb, dribble, fleck, flyspeck, grain, granule, molecule, morsel, mote, nubbin, bit, particle, patch, scrap, scruple, snip, snippet, speck, tittleRelated Words ace, dab, dash, driblet, drop, fraction, haet [chiefly Scottish], halfpenny, ha'penny, iota, jot, kenning [chiefly Scottish], lick, minim, mite, modicum, nutshell, ounce, pinch, shred, smatter, smidgen (also smidgeon or smidgin or smidge), spot, strain, streak, suspicion, taste, touch, trace, whisper, whit; bite, mouthful, nibble, tidbit (also titbit); fragment, part, portion, section; chip, flake, shard, shiver, sliver, splinter; clipping, paring, shaving; smithereensNear Antonyms chunk, gob, hunk, lump, slab; abundance, barrel, bucket, bushel, deal, heaps, loads, mass, mountain, peck, pile, pot, profusion, quantity, raft, scads, stack, volume, wad, wealth