fruit

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
fruit/fruːt/

▶noun

• 1 the sweet and fleshy product of a tree or other plant that contains seed and can be eaten as food.

  ■ Botany the seed-bearing structure of a plant, e.g. an acorn.

  ■ archaic or literary natural produce that can be used for food: the fruits of the earth.

• 2 the result or reward of work or activity.

• 3 archaic offspring.

• 4 N. Amer. informal, derogatory a male homosexual.

▶verb produce fruit.

– phrases
bear fruit have good results.
in fruit at the stage of producing fruit.

– origin ME: from OFr., from L. fructus ‘enjoyment of produce, harvest’, from frui ‘enjoy’, rel. to fruges ‘fruits of the earth’, pl. of frux, frug- ‘fruit’.