fruit

UK: /ˈfruːt/ US: /frut/ ,(fro̅o̅t)

Inflections of 'fruit' (n):

fruit

npl (Especially as a collective plural—e.g. "There was a heap of fruit in the middle of the table.")

fruits

npl (Mainly used to talk about different types—e.g. "Oranges and lemons are both fruits.")

WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2025

fruit /frut/   n., pl. fruits, (esp. when thought of as a group) fruit, v. 
n. 

1. Botany the part of a plant that is developed from a flower, esp. when used as food:
   [uncountable] Fruit provides vitamins.
   [countable] Apples and oranges are fruits.
2. a product, result, or effect;
   return or profit:
   [countable] the fruits of one's labors.

Idioms

3. Botany bear fruit, to produce a result or profit:
   The effort bore fruit.

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025

fruit  (fro̅o̅t), n., pl. fruits, (esp. collectively) fruit, v. 
n. 

1. Botany any product of plant growth useful to humans or animals.
2. Botany the developed ovary of a seed plant with its contents and accessory parts, as the pea pod, nut, tomato, or pineapple.
3. Botany the edible part of a plant developed from a flower, with any accessory tissues, as the peach, mulberry, or banana.
4. Botany, Fungi the spores and accessory organs of ferns, mosses, fungi, algae, or lichen.
5. anything produced or accruing;
   product, result, or effect;
   return or profit:
   the fruits of one's labors.
6. Slang Terms (disparaging and offensive). a male homosexual.

v.i., v.t. 

7. Botany to bear or cause to bear fruit:
   a tree that fruits in late summer; careful pruning that sometimes fruits a tree.

• Latin frūctus enjoyment, profit, fruit, equivalent. to frūg-, variant stem of fruī to enjoy the produce of + -tus suffix of verb, verbal action
• Old French
• Middle English 1125–75

fruit′like′, adj. 

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

fruit / fruːt/ noun

1. the ripened ovary of a flowering plant, containing one or more seeds. It may be dry, as in the poppy, or fleshy, as in the peach
2. any fleshy part of a plant, other than the above structure, that supports the seeds and is edible, such as the strawberry
3. any plant product useful to humans, including grain, vegetables, etc
4. (often plural) the result or consequence of an action or effort
5. a homosexual man
6. offspring of humans or animals; progeny

verb

1. to bear or cause to bear fruit

Etymology: 12th Century: from Old French, from Latin frūctus enjoyment, profit, fruit, from frūī to enjoy

ˈfruitˌlike adjective