Etymologically
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fruit

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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
  • 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)