apples

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of apple.

   Fresh apples filled the crates outside the farm stand.

   He sliced two apples for the pie before lunch.

   Note

   The regular plural, made with a plain -s and nothing more: one apple, two apples. It covers the fruit and the wider family the noun reaches, including other plant growths such as cones or galls, and anything round enough to resemble one. The same spelling also serves as the verb form, so in 'the apples ripen' and 'the tree apples' only the grammar tells them apart.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of apple.

   The grafted branch apples within just a few seasons.

   When the weather cooperates, this variety apples by midsummer.

   Note

   Behind this form stands a small, mostly dialectal verb. A bud or a root vegetable that swells into an apple's shape is said to apple, and in rare UK dialect use the verb means gathering fir cones. It is usually intransitive, so the form tends to close its clause, as in the crop apples late, rather than take an object.

3. 3
   nounslangcountableplural

   Slang for the testicles, the male reproductive glands.

   A stray knee caught him square in the apples during the scrum.

   He winced and grabbed his apples after the collision at second base.

   Similarnuts, balls, testicles

   Note

   A body-part word kept for casual, joking talk among people at ease with each other; in formal or mixed company it lands as crude. It appears only in the plural, and because the same spelling is everyday for the fruit, context has to do the work. A knee caught 'in the apples' leaves no doubt.

4. 4
   adjectiveslangAustraliaAustralian

   Good, fine, or satisfactory; turning out the way you'd hope.

   She reckoned everything would be apples once the rain stopped.

   No worries, it's all apples now that the deal's done.

   Similarfine, okay, good

   Note

   Australia's version of the trick behind the Cockney word for stairs: nice became apples and spice, or apples and rice, and was then cut to its first word. It works after be, as in everything's apples or it's all apples, and it has no comparative, since nothing is more apples than anything else. Sandra Dengler's Code of Honor (1988) gives it to a sailor relishing a perfect day.

5. 5
   noundialectalCockneypluralabbreviationclipping

   Clipping of apple and pears or apples and pears ("stairs"). Cockney rhyming slang.

   She carried the laundry up the apples to the bedroom.

   He stumbled coming down the apples after the long shift.

   Note

   Cockney rhyming slang at work: stairs is replaced by a phrase that rhymes with it, apples and pears, and then the rhyming half is dropped. What remains gives no hint of its meaning unless the listener already knows the full phrase. It stays plural, as in up the apples and down the apples, and belongs to playful Cockney speech rather than to writing meant for every reader.

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