Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The ripened ovary or ovaries of a seed-bearing plant, together with accessory parts, containing the seeds and occurring in a wide variety of forms.
  • noun An edible, usually sweet and fleshy form of such a structure.
  • noun A part or an amount of such a plant product, served as food.
  • noun The fertile, often spore-bearing structure of a plant that does not bear seeds.
  • noun A plant crop or product.
  • noun Result; outcome.
  • noun Offspring; progeny.
  • noun A fruity aroma or flavor in a wine.
  • noun Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a gay man.
  • intransitive & transitive verb To produce or cause to produce fruit.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To bring into fruit under cultivation.
  • noun In a general sense, any product of vegetable growth useful to men or animals, as grapes, figs, corn, cotton, flax, and all cultivated plants.
  • noun In a more limited sense, the reproductive product of a tree or other plant; the seed of plants, or the part that contains the seeds, as wheat, rye, oats, apples, pears, nuts, etc.
  • noun In a still more limited sense, an edible succulent product of a plant, normally covering and including the seeds, as the apple, orange, lemon, peach, pear, plum, a berry, a melon, etc.; in a collective sense, such products in the aggregate.
  • noun In botany, the matured ovary of a plant, consisting of the seeds and their pericarp, and including whatever may be incorporated with it; also, the spores of cryptogams and the organs accessory to them.
  • noun The produce of animals; offspring; young: as, the fruit of the womb, of the loins, of the body.
  • noun A product in general; anything produced by or resulting from effort of any kind, or by or from any cause; outcome, effect, result, or consequence: as, the fruits of victory; the fruit of folly.
  • To produce fruit; come into bearing.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Whatever is produced for the nourishment or enjoyment of man or animals by the processes of vegetable growth, as corn, grass, cotton, flax, etc.; -- commonly used in the plural.
  • noun (Hort.) The pulpy, edible seed vessels of certain plants, especially those grown on branches above ground, as apples, oranges, grapes, melons, berries, etc. See 3.
  • noun (Bot.) The ripened ovary of a flowering plant, with its contents and whatever parts are consolidated with it.
  • noun (Bot.) The spore cases or conceptacles of flowerless plants, as of ferns, mosses, algae, etc., with the spores contained in them.
  • noun The produce of animals; offspring; young.
  • noun That which is produced; the effect or consequence of any action; advantageous or desirable product or result; disadvantageous or evil consequence or effect.
  • noun (Zoöl.) one of the Frugivora; -- called also fruit-eating bat.
  • noun (Bot.) a bud that produces fruit; -- in most oplants the same as the power bud.
  • noun (Bot.) a collection of fruit cases, as in ferns.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a small dipterous insect of the genus Drosophila, which lives in fruit, in the larval state. There are seveal species, some of which are very damaging to fruit crops. One species, Drosophila melanogaster, has been intensively studied as a model species for genetic reserach.
  • noun a jar for holding preserved fruit, usually made of glass or earthenware.
  • noun (Zoöl.) one of numerous species of pigeons of the family Carpophagidæ, inhabiting India, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. They feed largely upon fruit. and are noted for their beautiful colors.
  • noun (Chem.) a kind of sugar occurring, naturally formed, in many ripe fruits, and in honey; levulose. The name is also, though rarely, applied to invert sugar, or to the natural mixture or dextrose and levulose resembling it, and found in fruits and honey.
  • noun (Hort.) a tree cultivated for its edible fruit.
  • noun (Zoöl.) one of numerous species of insect larvæ: which live in the interior of fruit. They are mostly small species of Lepidoptera and Diptera.
  • noun (Hort.) currants, raspberries, strawberries, etc.
  • intransitive verb To bear fruit.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun botany The seed-bearing part of a plant, often edible, colourful/colorful and fragrant, produced from a floral ovary after fertilization.
  • noun 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.
  • noun A positive end result or reward of labour or effort.
  • noun Offspring from a sexual union.
  • noun colloquial, derogatory, dated A homosexual or effeminate man.
  • verb To produce fruit.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb cause to bear fruit
  • verb bear fruit
  • noun an amount of a product
  • noun the ripened reproductive body of a seed plant
  • noun the consequence of some effort or action

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin frūctus, enjoyment, fruit, from past participle of fruī, to enjoy.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

(1125–75) Middle English fruit, frut "fruits and vegetables" from Old French fruit, from Latin fructus, a derivative of Latin frui ("to have the benefit of, to use, to enjoy"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhrug- (“to make use of, to have enjoyment of”); cognate with Modern German brauchen "to use", English brook "to tolerate". Displaced native Middle English ovet ("fruit") (from Old English ofett ("fruit")), Middle English wastum, wastom ("fruit, growth") (from Old English wæstm ("growth, produce, increase, fruit")), Middle English blede ("fruit, flower, offspring") (from Old English blēd ("fruit, flower")).

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Examples

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  • What else do you need?

    December 14, 2015

  • Just fru it.

    December 14, 2015