# fruit

Pronunciation: say "FROOT" US /fɹut/, UK /fɹuːt/

## Noun

1. The part of a plant that grows from the flower and holds the seeds, or any similar sweet or sour plant part eaten as food.
   - Simple: The part of a plant that holds its seeds, like an apple, or a similar sweet or sour plant part people eat.
   - _She keeps a bowl of apples, bananas and other fruit on the kitchen table._
   - _The plant produces a small red fruit once the flowers fade._
2. The result, effect, or consequence of an action or effort, whether advantageous or harmful.
   - Simple: The result you get from your work or actions, whether good or bad.
   - _Her promotion was the fruit of a decade of quiet persistence._
   - _The shaky truce was the bitter fruit of a long and costly war._
3. Relating to, made of, or having fruit; (of an animal) feeding on fruit.
   - Simple: Having to do with fruit, or with eating or growing it.
   - _The orchard is full of fruit trees heavy with apples._
   - _Fruit bats play a key role in spreading seeds across the forest._
6. A crazy or eccentric person, especially one who behaves oddly. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A person who acts crazy or very strange.
   - _Everyone on the block thought she was a real fruit after she started barking back at the neighbor's dogs._
   - _My landlady is a complete fruit who swears the moon landing was filmed in her basement._

## Verb

4. Of a plant or fungus, to bear fruit, seeds, or spores.
   - Simple: To grow and make fruit, seeds, or spores.
   - _The orchard's pear trees fruit heavily after a mild winter._
   - _Many mushrooms fruit overnight when the soil grows damp._

## Noun

5. The offspring resulting from a sexual union; one's children. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: An old word for a person's child or children.
   - _The prince was the fruit of a union between two rival houses._
   - _They prayed for a child, longing for the fruit of their marriage._
7. A derogatory, dated slang term for a homosexual man, or, figuratively, an effeminate man. *(dated)*
   - Simple: A rude, old word for a gay man, or for a man seen as girlish.
   - _His coworkers whispered that the new clerk was a fruit and kept their distance._
   - _In those years a man could lose his job if a neighbor called him a fruit._

## Other meanings

- (noun) The spores of cryptogams (plants like ferns and mosses) together with their accessory organs.

## Origin

Latin frūctus ("enjoyment, proceeds, produce") and frūx ("crop, produce") go back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰruHg-, a root meaning "to make use of, to enjoy." They gave Old French fruit ("produce, fruits and vegetables") and Middle English fruyt ("fruits and vegetables"), and the word replaced native Old English wæstm. English brook and German brauchen are cognates. The insulting uses for a "crazy person" or a "homosexual or effeminate man" may be a shortening of fruitcake, or they may have arisen on their own.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/fruit (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).