The pronunciation of ancient Egyptian is uncertain because vowels were long omitted from its writing, although her name often includes the unpronounced determinative hieroglyph for "sky".

Her name Nwt, itself also meaning "Sky",[5] is usually transcribed as "Nut" but also sometimes appears in older sources as Nunut, Nenet, Nuit or Not.

She had four children – Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthys – to which is added Horus in a Graeco-Egyptian version of the myth of Nut and Geb.

From the union of Geb and Nut came, among others, the most popular of Egyptian goddesses, Isis, the mother of Horus, whose story is central to that of her brother-husband, the resurrection god Osiris.

In his De Iside et Osiride, the Greek philosopher Plutarch, who lived in the first century CE, presents a narrative likely inspired by real Egyptian mythology regarding the birth of Nut's children.

The account describes how Rhea, secretly consorting with Saturn, was cursed by the sun-god Helios to never give birth during any day of the year.

Mercury, enamored with Rhea, intervened by gambling with the moon-goddess Selene and winning a seventieth portion of her moonlight, creating five additional days.

[13] The Ancient Egyptian texts barely reference this episode, offering only a subtle hint that it was Nut's father, not her husband as Plutarch proposed, who was responsible for the pregnancy.

Another ancient Egyptian text describes the moment as occurring "when the sky was full with gods, unknown to men, while the great Ennead slept.

Nut's fingers and toes were believed to touch the four cardinal points or directions of north, south, east, and west.