fruit

From Middle English fruyt, frut (“fruits and vegetables”), from Old French fruit (“produce, fruits and vegetables”), from Latin frūctus (“enjoyment, proceeds, profits, produce, income”) and frūx (“crop, produce, fruit”) (compare Latin fruor (“have the benefit of, to use, to enjoy”)), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰruHg- (“to make use of, to have enjoyment of”). Cognate with English brook (“to bear, tolerate”) and German brauchen (“to need”). Displaced native Old English wæstm.

Picture dictionary
pear apple nectarine papaya passionfruit mandarin peach mango dragon fruit tamarind
Click on labels in the image food tree Other fruits (not depicted above) cherry lemon pineapple melon plum

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: fro͞ot, IPA^(key): /fɹuːt/

  • Audio (UK):

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  • Audio (UK):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /fɹut/

  • Audio (US):

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• (Scotland, Northern Ireland) IPA^(key): /fɹʉt/
• Homophone: froot
• Rhymes: -uːt

fruit (countable and uncountable, plural fruits) (see Usage notes for discussion of plural)

2. (botany) A product of fertilization in a plant, specifically:
   • 1640, John Parkinson, Theatrum botanicum: the Theater of Plants; or, An Herball of a Large Extent, London, page 1063:

     [A]fter the flower is past commeth the fruit in long pods, every seede bunching out like the pods of Orobus and as bigge almost as the smaller Pease.

   1. The seed-bearing part of a plant; often edible, colourful, fragrant, and sweet or sour; produced from a floral ovary after fertilization.
   2. The spores of cryptogams and their accessory organs.
4. Any sweet or sour, edible part of a plant that resembles seed-bearing fruit (see former sense) even if it does not develop from a floral ovary.
   1. A sweet or sweetish vegetable, such as the petioles of rhubarb, that resembles a true fruit or is used in cookery as if it was a fruit.
5. An end result, effect, or consequence; advantageous or disadvantageous result.

   His long nights in the office eventually bore fruit when his business boomed and he was given a raise.

   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

     the fruit of rashness

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 3:10:

     They shall eat the fruit of their doings.

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 20, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     The fruits of this education became visible.

   • 2019 July 11, John Thornhill, “Does tech threaten to rerun the worst of the Industrial Revolution?”, in Financial Times‎^[1]:

     It is incontestably the case that future generations enjoyed the extraordinary fruits of the Industrial Revolution’s “great enrichment”.

6. (attributive) Of, belonging to, related to, or having fruit or its characteristics; (of living things) producing or consuming fruit.

   fresh-squeezed fruit juice

   a fruit salad

   an artificial fruit flavor

   a fruit tree

7. (dated, colloquial, derogatory) A homosexual man; (derogatory, figurative) an effeminate man. [from 1900]

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:gay man, Thesaurus:effeminate man

   • 1977 [1953], William S. Burroughs, edited by Allen Ginsberg, Junky, Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 66:

     "Moishe just checked in," he said. "He's a panhandler and a fruit. A disgrace to the Jewish race."

   • 1984, This is Spinal Tap, spoken by Ian Faith (Tony Hendra):

     I'm not talking to this twisted fruit anymore!

   • 1997, Daniel Clowes, “Garage Sale”, in Ghost World, Jonathan Cape, published 2000, →ISBN, page 15:

     Aww, but he's so cute! / He's a fruit… Oh my fucking god! You will not believe who was here today!

8. (archaic) Offspring from a sexual union.

   The litter was the fruit of the union between our whippet and their terrier.

   • c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv]:

     King Edward's fruit, true heir to the English crown

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 1:42:

     And she spake out with a loud voyce, and saide, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruite of thy wombe.

9. (informal) A crazy person.

• In the botanical and figurative senses, fruit is usually treated as uncountable:

  a bowl of fruit; eat plenty of fruit; the tree provides fruit.

• fruits is also sometimes used as the plural in the botanical sense:

  berries, achenes, and nuts are all fruits; the fruits of this plant split into two parts.

• When fruit is treated as uncountable in the botanical sense, a piece of fruit is often used as a singulative.
• In senses other than the botanical or figurative ones derived from the botanical sense, the plural is fruits.
• The culinary sense often does not cover true fruits that are savoury or used chiefly in savoury foods, such as tomatoes and peas. These are normally described simply as vegetables.

• See Thesaurus:fruit § Hyponyms

• fructose
• frugivore
• frugivorous

• Bislama: frut
• Jamaican Creole: fruut
• Tok Pisin: frut
• → Japanese: フルーツ (furūtsu)

fruit (third-person singular simple present fruits, present participle fruiting, simple past and past participle fruited)

1. To produce fruit, seeds, or spores.
   • 1910, Canada Experimental Farms Service, Report of the Dominion Experimental Farms:

     It may be said, however, that the percentage of green apples among the Fameuse seedlings is much less than among the others as out of 33 Fameuse seedlings which had fruited up to this year, none was green and we recollect but one light coloured Fameuse seedling fruiting this year.

   • 1998, Randy Molina, David Pilz, Managing Forest Ecosystems to Conserve Fungus Diversity and Sustain Wild Mushroom Harvests, →ISBN, page 10:

     For example, chanterelles and russulas can start fruiting in early to mid summer given sufficient moisture, but other species, such as matsutake, rarely fruit until temperatures cool in the autumn, even if moisture is available earlier.

   • 2014, David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks, →ISBN, page 12:

     The grass and weeds come up to my waist and the plum trees are already fruiting up, though most of the fruit'll go to the wasps and the worms, Vinny says, 'cause he can't be arsed to pick it.

• Category:Fruits for a list of fruits
• fruiting (in aviation)

• Fruit on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• List of fruits on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Inherited from Latin fructus.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈfɾujt]

• Audio:

  (file)

fruit m (plural fruits)

1. fruit
2. offspring

   el fruit de les seves entranyes ― the fruit of his loins

3. result, consequence

   Synonyms: efecte, conseqüència

4. profit, benefit

   Synonyms: benefici, profit, utilitat

• fruita
• fruitat

• “fruit” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “fruit”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
• “fruit” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “fruit” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

• IPA^(key): /frœy̯t/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fruit
• Rhymes: -œy̯t

From Middle Dutch fruut, froyt, from Old French fruit, from Latin frūctus. Doublet of vrucht.

fruit n (uncountable)

1. (usually collective) fruit (produced by trees or bushes, or any sweet vegetable; only literal sense)

• ooft (archaic)
• vrucht (also metaphorical result)

- fruit types

• Berbice Creole Dutch: frutu

From Middle Dutch fruten, older friten (“to fry”), from Old French frit, past participle of frire (“to fry”).

fruit

1. inflection of fruiten:
   1. first/second/third-person singular present indicative
   2. imperative

Inherited from Middle French fruict, a latinized spelling of Old French fruit, from Latin frūctus (“enjoyment, proceeds, profits, produce, income”), a derivative of fruor (“have the benefit of, to use, to enjoy”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰruHg- (“to make use of, to have enjoyment of”).

• IPA^(key): /fʁɥi/

• Audio (Western France); “un fruit”:

  (file)

• Homophone: fruits

fruit m (plural fruits)

1. fruit

• Haitian Creole: fwi

• “fruit”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

fruit

1. Alternative form of fruyt

From Latin frūctus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɾyi̯t/

fruit oblique singular, m (oblique plural fruiz or fruitz, nominative singular fruiz or fruitz, nominative plural fruit)

1. fruit
   • c. 1170, Christian of Troyes, Érec et Énide:

     Oisiaus et veneison et fruit

     bird, venison and fruit

• Champenois: frut
• Gallo: frut
• Middle French: fruict
  • French: fruit
    • Haitian Creole: fwi
• Norman: frit
• Picard: frut
• Walloon: frut
• → Middle Dutch: fruut, froyt
  • Dutch: fruit
• → Middle English: fruyt, freut, fruct, fruit, frut, frute
  • English: fruit
    • Bislama: frut
    • Jamaican Creole: fruut
    • Tok Pisin: frut
    • → Japanese: フルーツ (furūtsu)
  • Scots: fruit, frute
  • → Cornish: frut

• IPA^(key): /frɔ̈ˌi̯t/

fruit n (no plural)

1. fruit

• J. W. Zantema, Frysk wurdboek. Deel 1: Frysk - Nederlânsk, 11e printige, page 315