Fruit  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Revision as of 15:40, 5 February 2008

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1. In botany: The seed-bearing part of a plant, often edible, colourful/colorful and fragrant, produced from a floral ovary after fertilization.

   While cucumber is technically a fruit, one would not usually use it to make jam.

2. Any sweet, edible part of a plant that resembles seed-bearing fruit, even if it does not develop from a floral ovary; also used in a technically imprecise sense for some sweet or sweetish vegetables, such as rhubarb, that resemble a true fruit or are used in cookery as if they were a fruit.

   Fruit salad is a simple way of making fruits into a dessert.

3. A positive end result or reward of labour or effort.

   His long nights in the office eventually bore fruit, when his business boomed and he was given a raise.

4. Offspring from a sexual union.

   The litter was the fruit of the union between our whippet and their terrier.

5. slang, offensive A homosexual or effeminate man.

Usage notes

• In the botanical and figurative senses, fruit is a singular noun and also used as a collective noun.

  a bowl of fruit; eat plenty of fruit; the tree provides fruit.

• Fruits is also sometimes used as the plural in the botanical sense.

  berries, achenes, and nuts are all fruits; the fruits of this plant split into two parts.

• When fruit is used as a collective noun in the botanical sense, a piece of fruit is often used as the corresponding singular form.
• In senses other than the botanical or figurative ones derived from the botanical sense, the plural is fruits.

See also

• Forbidden fruit