rotten apple

Idioms and Phrases

A bad individual among many good ones, especially one that spoils the group. For example, The roommates are having problems with Edith—she's the one rotten apple of the bunch . This expression is a shortening of the proverb a rotten apple spoils the barrel , coming from a 14th-century Latin proverb translated as “The rotten apple injures its neighbors.” The allusion in this idiom is to the spread of mold or other diseases from one apple to the rest. In English the first recorded use was in Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack (1736).

Example Sentences

This is no isolated incident, no "one rotten apple in the barrel."

From The Daily Beast

She was upborne by the thought that it would be a relief to him not to see anything like a rotten apple.

From Project Gutenberg

They say she has a face like a cankered oak gall or a rotten apple lying cracked on the ground among the wasps.

From Project Gutenberg

But he was pretty well all alone; there's got to be a rotten apple in the best-picked barrel and these boys were smart.

From Project Gutenberg

There is as much difference between the bankers of London and bankers in Paris, as between a rotten apple and a sound one.

From Project Gutenberg

We should no more eat bad grain than a rotten apple, or putrefying meat.

From Project Gutenberg