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fruit

Pronunciation: /fɹuːt/

The English word “fruit” has 12 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A product of fertilization in a plant, specifically
  2. The seed-bearing part of a plant; often edible, colourful, fragrant, and sweet or sour; produced from a floral ovary after fertilization.
  3. The spores of cryptogams and their accessory organs.
  4. Any sweet or sour, edible part of a plant that resembles seed-bearing fruit (see former sense) even if it does not develop from a floral ovary.
  5. A sweet or sweetish vegetable, such as the petioles of rhubarb, that resembles a true fruit or is used in cookery as if it was a fruit.
  6. An end result, effect, or consequence; advantageous or disadvantageous result.
  7. Of, belonging to, related to, or having fruit or its characteristics; (of living things) producing or consuming fruit.
  8. A homosexual man, especially an effeminate one.
  9. An effeminate man.
  10. Offspring from a sexual union.
  11. A crazy person.

verb

  1. To produce fruit, seeds, or spores.

Etymology

From Middle English fruyt, frut (“fruits and vegetables”), from Old French fruit (“produce, fruits and vegetables”), from Latin fruitus (“enjoyment, proceeds, profits, produce, income”), frūctus and frūx (“crop, produce, fruit”) (compare Latin fruor (“have the benefit of, to use, to enjoy”)). Cognate with English brook (“to bear, tolerate”) and German brauchen (“to need”). Partially displaced…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.