Not wishing to steal NewCal's thunder, but I wanted to relate a little anecdote regarding this term.

About ten years ago, when I worked in-house for a French translation firm, we had a phone call from an industrial bakery who made various types of fruit tart, etc. They had received a letter from a rather irate customer in the UK (a supermarket chain) who had analysed one of their pear and almond tarts and - surprise, surprise - found almonds in it, whereas they had previously completed an "allergy questionnaire" and declared that their products contained no nuts.
Rather than going to the "enormous" expense of getting this questionnaire translated professionally (plug, plug), they had cut corners and used a dictionary. When they got to the question "Does your produce contain nuts?", they'd translated "nuts" as "noix" - and replied "No" (intending to say that their pear and almond tarts contained no walnuts).

We explained to them that "nuts" should really have been understood as all "fruits à coque" (although this term is far less common than the generic "nuts" in English) to avoid confusion. We then had a rather grovelling letter to translate to their customer!