Apple
Pronunciation
- US enPR: ăpʹ(ə)l, IPA: /ˈæpl̩/, /ˈæpəl/
- Rhymes: -æpəl
Alternative forms
- apl Jamaican English
Origin
From Middle English appel, from Old English æppel ("apple, any kind of fruit, fruit in general, apple of the eye, ball, anything round, bolus, pill"), from Proto-Germanic *aplaz ("apple") (compare Scots aipple, West Frisian apel, Dutch appel, German Apfel, Swedish äpple), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éblÌ¥, *hâ‚‚ebÅl (compare Irish úll, Lithuanian óbuolỹs, Russian Ñблоко, possibly Ancient Greek ἄμπελος (ampelos, "vine")).
Full definition of apple
Noun
apple
(plural apples)- A common, round fruit produced by the tree Malus domestica, cultivated in temperate climates. from 9th c.
- c. 1378, William Langland, Piers Plowman:I prayed pieres to pulle adown an apple.
- 1815, Jane Austen, Emma:Not that I had any doubt before – I have so often heard Mr. Woodhouse recommend a baked apple.
- 2013, John Vallins, The Guardian, 28 Oct 2013:Close by and under cover, I watched the juicing process. Apples were washed, then tipped, stalks and all, into the crusher and reduced to pulp.
- Any of various tree-borne fruits or vegetables especially considered as resembling an apple; also (with qualifying words) used to form the names of other specific fruits such as custard apple, thorn apple etc. from 9th c.
- 1658, trans. Giambattista della Porta, Natural Magick, I.16:In Persia there grows a deadly tree, whose Apples are Poison, and present death.
- 1784, James Cook, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, II:Otaheite … is remarkable for producing great quantities of that delicious fruit we called apples, which are found in none of the others, except Eimeo.
- 1825, Theodric Romeyn Beck, Elements of Medical Jurisprudence, 2nd edition, p. 565:Hippomane mancinella. (Manchineel-tree.) Dr. Peysonnel relates that a soldier, who was a slave with the Turks, eat some of the apples of this tree, and was soon seized with a swelling and pain of the abdomen.
- The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, eaten by Adam and Eve according to post-Biblical Christian tradition; the forbidden fruit. from 11th c.
- 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book X:Him by fraud I have seduced
From his Creator; and, the more to encrease
Your wonder, with an apple …. - 1985, Barry Reckord, The White Witch:Woman ate the apple, and discovered sex, and lost all shame, and lift up her fig—leaf, and she must suffer the pains of hell. Monthly.
- A tree of the genus Malus, especially one cultivated for its edible fruit; the apple tree. from 15th c.
- 1913, John Weathers, Commercial Gardening, p. 38:If the grafted portion of an Apple or other tree were examined after one hundred years, the old cut surfaces would still be present, for mature or ripened wood, being dead, never unites.
- 2000 PA Thomas, Trees: Their Natural History, p. 227:This allows a weak plant to benefit from the strong roots of another, or a vigorous tree (such as an apple) to be kept small by growing on 'dwarfing rootstock'.
- 2009, Sid Gardner, The Faults of the Owens Valley
- 2012, Terri Reid, The Everything Guide to Living Off the Grid, p. 77:Other fruit trees, like apples, need well-drained soil.
- The wood of the apple tree. from 19th c.
- (in the plural, Cockney rhyming slang) Short for apples and pears, slang for stairs. from 20th c.
- (baseball, slang, obsolete) The ball in baseball. from 20th c.
- (informal) When smiling, the round, fleshy part of the cheeks between the eyes and the corners of the mouth.