fruit

American  

[froot] / frut /

noun

fruits, plural fruit plural

1. any product of plant growth useful to humans or animals.

2. the developed ovary of a seed plant with its contents and accessory parts, as the pea pod, nut, tomato, or pineapple.

3. the edible part of a plant developed from a flower, with any accessory tissues, as the peach, mulberry, or banana.

4. the spores and accessory organs of ferns, mosses, fungi, algae, or lichen.

5. anything produced or accruing; product, result, or effect; return or profit.

   the fruits of one's labors.

6. Slang: Extremely Disparaging and Offensive. a contemptuous term used to refer to a gay man.

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verb (used with or without object)

fruits, present (3rd person singular) fruited, past participle, past fruiting present participle

1. to bear or cause to bear fruit.

   a tree that fruits in late summer; careful pruning that sometimes fruits a tree.

fruit British  

/ fruːt /

noun

1. botany the ripened ovary of a flowering plant, containing one or more seeds. It may be dry, as in the poppy, or fleshy, as in the peach

2. any fleshy part of a plant, other than the above structure, that supports the seeds and is edible, such as the strawberry

3. the specialized spore-producing structure of plants that do not bear seeds

4. any plant product useful to man, including grain, vegetables, etc

5. (often plural) the result or consequence of an action or effort

6. old-fashioned chap; fellow: used as a term of address

7. slang a person considered to be eccentric or insane

8. slang a male homosexual

9. archaic offspring of man or animals; progeny

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verb

1. to bear or cause to bear fruit

fruit Scientific  

/ fro̅o̅t /

1. The ripened ovary of a flowering plant that contains the seeds, sometimes fused with other parts of the plant. Fruits can be dry or fleshy. Berries, nuts, grains, pods, and drupes are fruits.

2. ◆ Fruits that consist of ripened ovaries alone, such as the tomato and pea pod, are called true fruits.

3. ◆ Fruits that consist of ripened ovaries and other parts such as the receptacle or bracts, as in the apple, are called accessory fruits or false fruits.

4. See also aggregate fruit multiple fruit simple fruit See Note at berry

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fruit Cultural  

1. In botany, the part of a seed-bearing plant that contains the fertilized seeds capable of generating a new plant (see fertilization). Fruit develops from the female part of the plant. Apples, peaches, tomatoes, and many other familiar foods are fruits.

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fruit Idioms  

1. see bear fruit; forbidden fruit.

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Usage

To most of us, a fruit is a plant part that is eaten as a dessert or snack because it is sweet, but to a botanist a fruit is a mature ovary of a plant, and as such it may or may not taste sweet. All species of flowering plants produce fruits that contain seeds. A peach, for example, contains a pit that can grow into a new peach tree, while the seeds known as peas can grow into another pea vine. To a botanist, apples, peaches, peppers, tomatoes, pea pods, cucumbers, and winged maple seeds are all fruits. A vegetable is simply part of a plant that is grown primarily for food. Thus, the leaf of spinach, the root of a carrot, the flower of broccoli, and the stalk of celery are all vegetables. In everyday, nonscientific speech we make the distinction between sweet plant parts (fruits) and nonsweet plant parts (vegetables). This is why we speak of peppers and cucumbers and squash—all fruits in the eyes of a botanist—as vegetables.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• fruitlike
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• fruit
  plural
• fruits
  plural

Participles

• fruiting
  present
• fruited
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• fruit
  simple
• fruits
  simple
• have fruited
  perfect
• has fruited
  perfect
• am fruiting
  progressive
• are fruiting
  progressive
• is fruiting
  progressive
• have been fruiting
  perfect progressive
• has been fruiting
  perfect progressive

Past

• fruited
  simple
• had fruited
  perfect
• was fruiting
  progressive
• were fruiting
  progressive
• had been fruiting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will fruit
  simple
• will have fruited
  perfect
• will be fruiting
  progressive
• will have been fruiting
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of fruit

First recorded in 1125–75; Middle English, from Old French, from Latin frūctus “enjoyment, profit, fruit,” equivalent to frūg-, variant stem of fruī “to enjoy the produce of” + -tus suffix of verbal action

Explanation

The fruit of something is what it produces, like the apples on apples trees, the grapes on grapevines, or the fruit of your labor, like the cake you baked. Fruit comes from the Latin fructus, whose root is frui, "to enjoy." The fruit of a plant, like an orange or banana, is the product of the plant that we enjoy. (You wouldn't munch on the orange tree's branch, would you?) But fruit is also the product of any work. A woven rug is the fruit of the loom, while an infant, figuratively, is called the fruit of the womb.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

fruit fruits fruited fruiting

Booz Allen Hamilton said demand is picking up across several parts of its business and that cost-cutting initiatives are bearing fruit, resulting in higher-than-expected profit during the recent quarter.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026

Replacing one daily serving of a sugary beverage with whole fruit, milk or water was associated with a lower risk of high blood pressure.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 23, 2026

Through questionnaires completed every 1 to 4 years, participants reported how often they consumed sugar-sweetened beverages such as soda, fruit punch, lemonade, sweetened tea and sports drinks.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 23, 2026

A serving of fruit juice was defined as an 8-ounce glass.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 23, 2026

The original farmers grew vegetable gardens and fruit orchards, and they raised chickens and sheep and goats.

From "The Wild Robot Escapes" by Peter Brown

There are endless kinds, each one different depending on where it was drilled, the same way different fruits have different flavors and nutrients.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 21, 2026

Moldy, bruised and rotten fruits and vegetables should also be avoided.

From Salon ● Jul. 20, 2026

The fruits of Tahnoon’s push are visible in the form of a massive construction site on a sandy patch of land miles from central Abu Dhabi, where thousands of laborers are working day and night.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026

Health officials have advised the public to thoroughly wash produce, avoid certain fruits like raspberries, and cook vegetables to kill off the pathogen - but they still have not identified its sources.

From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026

The problem was woven into every aspect of family life, from the high price of fresh fruits to widespread cuts in funding for sports and rec programs in public schools.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

Over the 250 years since America’s birth, there have been amber waves of great comic material, veritable fruited plains of satirical fodder.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026

The explanation for their propinquity lies not in the creation of some whiz-bang, life-changing, paradigm-bending consumer product, or the shining virtues or particularly fertile minds that grace Silicon Valley’s fruited plain.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 26, 2025

Before long, most cuisines had some sort of fruited breads or cakes that were early versions of the modern fruitcake.

From Salon ● Dec. 17, 2024

Home to Lincoln Beer Company, patrons can sip on the brewery’s “perfectly pineapple” fruited wheat pints within sight of the building’s towers, reaching nobly into the Southern California skies.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 8, 2023

"Purple fruited makes more sense. How about grapes or plums?"

From "The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin

A fully realized edible garden, complete with raised beds and fruiting trees, enhances the property’s sense of abundance and connection to nature.”

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 25, 2026

At Taï, where chimps more often eat fruit that has fallen, the team similarly gathered undamaged and unbitten fruits from the ground below fruiting trees.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 1, 2025

To enable robots to navigate fields and harvest efficiently, many farms would need to plant fruiting walls—apple trees that have been trained to grow in dense canopies against flat vertical surfaces.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2025

Secondly, that mycelium lacks beneficial compounds like beta-glucans, which are known for certain potential immune-boosting properties and are more plentiful in fruiting bodies.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2025

I couldn't make it now without money, however, as there is very little fruiting agriculture down here at this time.

From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer

Related Words

• berry
• crop
• grain
• nut
• produce
• product