Nuts are almost always used opposite a mating bolt to fasten a stack of parts together. The two partners are kept together by a combination of their threads' friction, a slight stretch of the bolt, and compression of the parts. In applications where vibration or rotation may work a nut loose, various locking mechanisms may be employed: Adhesives, safety pins or lockwire, nylon inserts, or slightly oval-shaped threads. The most common shape is hexagonal, for similar reasons as the bolt head - 6 sides give a good granularity of angles for a tool to approach from (good in tight spots), but more (and smaller) corners would be vulnerable to being rounded off. Other specialized shapes exist for certain needs, such as wing nuts for finger adjustment and captive nuts for inaccessible areas.

Since hot-dip galvanizing typically adds 2.2 to 5 mils of thickness to the threaded portion of a fastener, galvanized heavy hex nuts are tapped oversize to compensate for the corrosion resistant coating on the bolts.

Pack of 8 M12 hex nuts