fruit

Pronunciation

• IPA: /fruːt/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English frut, fruit,^[2] borrowed from Old French fruit (“fruit, dessert; harvest; virtuous action”) (12th century),^[3][2] from Latin frūctus (“enjoyment; produce, fruit, crops; profit”),^[3][2][4] from frūg-, stem of fruī “to use, enjoy”,^[3][2][5] from Proto-Indo-European *bhrug- (“to enjoy”).^[3] The Latin word also gave Spanish fruto, Italian frutto and German Frucht.^[3] The spelling with i, after French, became established in the 16th century.^[2] It is related to frugal and brook “to tolerate”.^[4][2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Vegetable products in general fit for food: about 1175 in the OED,^[6] the late 12th century in Etymonline,^[3] probably before 1200 in Barnhart, as frut in the Ancrene Riwle.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It first meant all products of the soil, vegetables, nuts, grain;^[3] the narrower modern sense, the edible product of a tree or plant, is from the early 13th century.^[3][6] Offspring is from the mid-13th century,^[3] income or profit from the soil from the mid-14th, preserved in the fruits of one's labour,^[3] and any consequence or result from the late 14th.^[3] The verb, to bear fruit, is from 1377.^[6][2] In botany the seed with its covering is from 1794.^[6] Fruitful is from about 1390, in Chaucer,^[2] fruitcake from 1848 in American English,^[2] and fruity from 1657.^[2] Slang senses include an odd person, from 1910,^[3] and a male homosexual, from 1927,^[3][4] and fruitcake, a mad person, from the mid-20th century.^[4] In Worcestershire and Herefordshire fruit meant apples, the fruit of the county.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1175 – produce of the soil.^[6]
• early 13th century – edible fruit.^[3]
• mid-13th century – offspring.^[3]
• 1377 – verb, to bear fruit.^[6]
• late 14th century – a result.^[3]
• c. 1390 – fruitful.^[2]
• 1794 – in botany.^[6]
• 1848 – fruitcake.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The sweet, fleshy, edible part of a plant, such as an apple or orange, or such parts collectively.
2. (botany) The ripened ovary of a flowering plant, containing the seeds.
3. Any plant product used as food: the fruits of the earth.
4. The result or consequence of something: the fruit of years of work.
5. (archaic) Offspring.

Verb

1. To produce fruit.

Word family

• fruited
• fruitlike
• fruitage
• fruitarian
• fruitcake
• fruiter
• fruiterer
• fruitful

Related words

• fructose
• frugivore
• frugivorous
• fruition
• fruity
• frugal
• brook

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)