Dictionary › F › fruit
fruit
1 syllableYour browser doesn’t have built-in voices. Try Chrome, Edge or Safari.
As a noun, fruit means in general, a product of plant growth useful to man or animals. As a verb, it means produce fruit, seeds, or spores.
Meanings of fruit
14 meaningsnoun
often in the pluralIn general, a product of plant growth useful to man or animals.
Specifically, a sweet and/or sour, edible part of a plant that resembles seed-bearing fruit (see next sense), 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 the petioles of rhubarb, that resemble a true fruit or are used in cookery as if they were a fruit.
botanyA product of fertilization in a plant, specifically:
The seed-bearing part of a plant, often edible, colourful and fragrant, produced from a floral ovary after fertilization.
The spores of cryptogams and their accessory organs.
An end result, effect, or consequence; advantageous or disadvantageous result.
“His long nights in the office eventually bore fruit when his business boomed and he was given a raise.”
attributiveOf, belonging to, related to, or having fruit or its characteristics; (of living things) producing or consuming fruit.
“fresh-squeezed fruit juice”
“a fruit salad”
informalA crazy person.
The ripened reproductive body of a seed plantplant
The consequence of some effort or action
“he lived long enough to see the fruit of his policies”
Older and rare meanings (2)
datedcolloquialderogatoryA homosexual man; (derogatory, figurative) an effeminate man.
archaicOffspring from a sexual union.
“The litter was the fruit of the union between our whippet and their terrier.”
verb
To produce fruit, seeds, or spores.
Cause to bear fruit
Meanings from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0).