a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) l. 8239 All frutes he plantede in þat place.

1577 B. Googe tr. C. Heresbach Foure Bks. Husbandry ii. f. 83^v About the tenth of Iune, both the Uine, and Wheate, the two noble fruites, doo flowre.

1767 A. Young Farmer's Lett. 313 Many of our fruits and most useful plants are the natural inhabitants of much warmer countries.

1587 A. Fleming et al. Holinshed's Chron. (new ed.) III. 915/2 The officers being at dinner, and the cardinall not fullie dined, being then in his fruits.

1604 W. Shakespeare Hamlet ii. ii. 52 My newes shall be the fruite to that great feast. View more context for this quotation

a1340 R. Rolle Psalter cxxxi. 11 Of þe froite of þi wambe i sall sett on þi seat.

c1384 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(2)) (1850) Deeds ii. 30 God hadde sworn to him, of the fruyt of his leende for to sitte on his seete.

a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) II. xvii. lxxiv. 964 We speke vnpropreliche somtyme and clepe þe brood of þe best [emended in ed. to of bestes] fruyte.

a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) l. 5445 Þi frut i se be for mi nei.

c1425 Bk. Found. St. Bartholomew's (1923) 42 Stondyng neyr the tyme that the fruyt shulde be proferid forth.

c1500 Melusine (1895) xxx. 218 Duchesse, take good heede of your fruyte that groweth in your blood.

1533 J. Gau tr. C. Pedersen Richt Vay sig. Bii Thay quhilk takis avay the frwtis of thair nichtburs beistis.

1535 Bible (Coverdale) Deut. xxviii. 4 Blessed shalbe the frute of thy body.

1578 H. Lyte tr. R. Dodoens Niewe Herball ii. lxxvii. 252 It closeth the Matrice, causeth the fruite to live.

1595 W. Shakespeare Henry VI, Pt. 3 iv. v. 24 Vnto the sanctuarie, There to preserue the fruit within my wombe.

1607 E. Topsell Hist. Foure-footed Beastes 667 As we see Hens eat vp the Egges that they themselus haue layd, so shal we obserue some sows to deuoure the frutes of their owne wombes.

1611 Bible (King James) Exod. xxi. 22 If men striue, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her. View more context for this quotation

a1629 W. Hinde Faithfull Remonstr. (1641) i. 2 The Lord with-held the fruit of the womb..so that by her he had no issue.

1834 S. Cooper Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) IV. 130 It is hence the more alarming in any period of parturition, as risking the loss of the uterine fruit.

1895 W. C. Gore in Inlander Dec. 111 Fruit, one who can be easily deceived.

1913 Punch 22 Jan. 72/2 It was a flaw in the new play that its mugs were such ‘easy fruit’.

1931 G. Irwin Amer. Tramp & Underworld Slang 81 Fruit, an ‘easy mark’. A girl or woman willing to oblige. Probably..from the fact that they are ‘easy picking’.

1935 N. Ersine Underworld & Prison Slang 38 Fruit, a sexual pervert.

1957 K. Martin Aubade v. 79 The way I'm acting anyone would think I was a fruit. Gary probably is. He looks like one.

1970 Guardian 13 Feb. 9/5 He is a fruit, which means..that he is a queer.

1971 Rolling Stone 24 June 3/2 John Mendelsohn did an excellent job acting like a fruit.

1892 Insect Life 4 293 The topics treated are the Fruit Bark-beetle (Scolytus rugulosus); [etc.].

1951 Dict. Gardening (Royal Hort. Soc.) II. 843/1 Fruit-bark Beetle, Scolytus rugulosus, attacks a number of fruit trees, especially Apple and Plum.

1877 W. S. Dallas in Cassell's Nat. Hist. I. 269 The young African Fruit Bats born in the Zoological Gardens were covered with short, smooth hair.

1883 Chambers's Jrnl. 22 Dec. 810/1 That curious species of bats known as the fruit-bat or flying-fox.

1905 Westm. Gaz. 8 Nov. 10/2 The Indian fruit bat..is not a novelty in the menagerie.

1936 Discovery Oct. 307/1 Before the advent of the white man and his cultivated fruits, these great fruit bats lived on scrub figs, berries, ti-tree and gum blossoms for the honey they contained.

1966 V. Serventy Continent in Danger iv. 86 Some of the ‘batteries’ or camps of the fruit bats..number hundreds of thousands of individuals.

1912 C. Thom in C. E. Marshall Microbiology i. 13 The systems of classification used are largely based upon the types of sexual fruit bodies produced.

1927 H. Gwynne-Vaughan & B. F. Barnes Struct. & Devel. Fungi 1 In relation to the fruit bodies of higher forms, they [sc. the hyphae] become woven into a dense mass.

1968 Gloss. Terms Timber Preservation (B.S.I.) 10 Fruit(ing) body, in wood-destroying fungi, a structure that bears the spore-producing organs and spores, commonly a conspicuous bracket, toadstool or compacted sheet, with pores, gills, spines, etc., bearing the spores.

1969 New Scientist 27 Nov. 451/1 Only when fruitbodies are formed does the maximum conversion of compost nutrients into edible food take place.

1691 J. Evelyn Kalendarium Hortense (ed. 8) 14 Learn first to..distinguish the Bearing and Fruit-buds from the Leaf-buds.

1707 tr. P. Le Lorrain de Vallemont Curiosities in Husbandry & Gardening 147 The Graft very seldom fails..provided it..have Fruit-Buttons.

1864 R. D. Blackmore Clara Vaughan III. iv. xvii The famous racing cutter..could exhibit her taffrail to the smartest fruit-clipper.

1922 N.Y. Hotel Rev. 18 Mar. 62 Fruit cocktail.

1928 Sat. Evening Post (Philadelphia) 12 May 107/1 Mr. Montgomery had taken a morsel of fruit cocktail.

c1938 Fortnum & Mason Catal. 32/1 Fruits in syrup..Fruit Cocktail..per tin 1/8.

1968 C. Drummond Death & Leaping Ladies i. 22 I ended up with eighteen fruit cocktails and..was left with eleven sure-fire hits.

1856 W. S. Dallas Nat. Hist. Animal Kingdom 552 The Gymnoderinæ, or Fruit Crows.

1931 Notes & Queries 4 Apr. 241/2 Where fruit-cup, ices and wonderful cakes were served.

1959 N. Mailer Advts. for Myself (1961) 358 You Americans always eat the last course first... Fruit cup with sherbet, if you please.

1880 A. Gray Struct. Bot. 433/2 The clustered fruit-dots of ferns.

1907 Yesterday's Shopping (1969) 50 Acidulated fruit drops.

1935 G. Greene Basement Room & Other Stories 40 A sticky fruit drop in his hand.

1959 I. Opie & P. Opie Lore & Lang. Schoolchildren ix. 166 ‘Lollies’ is becoming a general term..for..humbugs, large aniseed balls, and fruit drops.

1971 Guardian 18 Aug. 4/3 Fruit-drops, lollipops, a stick of chewing-gum.

1753 Chambers's Cycl. Suppl. Fruit-flies, a name given by gardeners, and others, to a sort of small black flies, found in vast numbers among fruit trees, in the spring season.

1874 E. H. Knight Pract. Dict. Mech. Fruit-frame, Hort. a trellis or espalier.

1847 Ann. Rep. Commissioner Patents 1846 19 in U.S. Congress. Serial Set (29th Congr., 2nd Sess.: House of Representatives Executive Doc. 52) III A fruit-gatherer, of very ingenious and simple construction, has been patented.

1910 Daily Chron. 10 Feb. 1/5 A fruit-gatherer attached to a pole and armed with cutting teeth.

1750 H. Walpole Let. 23 June in Corr. (1941) IX. 109 She had brought Betty the fruit-girl with hampers of strawberries and cherries.

1811 W. Combe Schoolmaster's Tour in Poet. Mag. Mar. 187 A fruit-girl's barrow strikes his shin.

1938 G. Greene Brighton Rock vii. vii. 328 The packets of fruit gums came dropping out.

1960 E. W. Hildick Boy at Window xiv. 108 I asked him for a box and he simply tipped the rolls of fruit gum out of this.

1971 Times Educ. Suppl. 25 June 20/3 A skyver..offered the teacher a fruit gum.

1794 Ld. Spencer in Ld. Auckland's Corr. (1862) III. 255 I am going with Caroline to the fruit-house.

1846 A. Soyer Gastron. Regenerator p. xxi All fruit jellies [should be] as near as possible to the colour of the fruit.

1875 Encycl. Brit. I. 172/1 Jams, marmalades, and fruit jellies.

1855 H. Clarke New Dict. Eng. Lang. Fruit-knife.

1933 Times 7 Apr. 4/2 Committed to trial..on a charge of receiving 20 automatic ‘fruit’ machines..knowing them to be stolen.

1943 J. L. Hunt & A. G. Pringle Service Slang 33 Fruit machine, an anti-aircraft predictor.

1957 Economist 30 Nov. 781/2 Permission to install the minor gambling devices known as ‘fruit machines’..is by county option.

1959 G. Jenkins Twist of Sand vii. 110 The ‘fruit machine’ fed by information from two officers, gave the course and speed of the warships.

1965 Listener 2 Sept. 342/3 There are three juke boxes; pin tables; fruit machines.

1881 Daily News 5 Aug. 2/7 In long past days the Corporation fruitmeters claimed a sample of fruit from each package entering the Port of London.

1874 E. H. Knight Pract. Dict. Mech. Fruit-Mill, a mill for grinding grapes for must or apples for cider.

1862 T. W. Harris Treat. Insects Injurious to Vegetation (ed. 3) 484 Carpocapsa Pomonella, the codling-moth, or fruit-moth of the apple.

1846 Knickerbocker Mag. 38 67 The fruit-netting over the stern amply filled with the products of that luscious land.

1865 Athenæum No. 1954. 494/3 A rare fruit-pigeon from the Seychelles.

1861 I. M. Beeton Bk. Househ. Managem. xxxi. 798 Fruit salads are made by stripping the fruit from the stalks, piling it on a dish, and sprinkling over it finely-pounded sugar.

1943 J. L. Hunt & A. G. Pringle Service Slang 33 Fruit salad, a large collection of medal ribbons which runs to three or more rows.

1955 ‘N. Shute’ Requiem for Wren iii. 74 A red-faced old gentleman with..a fruit salad of medal ribbons on his chest.

1961 Times 19 Apr. 13/3 The ribbons worn on the chest and colloquially called ‘fruit salad’.

1964 B. Falk Peacock Cookery Bk. 136 A fruit salad can be made from any mixture of fresh fruit in season together with some tinned fruit, or from fresh fruit alone.

1889 Illustr. London News 31 July 33 (advt.) For health and longevity, use Eno's ‘Fruit Salt’.

1892 E. Lytton Let. 18 Nov. in E. Lutyens Blessed Girl (1953) ix. 179 When he comes down cured..Sir Augustus puts it down to Eno's Fruit Salts.

1939 D. L. Sayers In Teeth of Evidence 64 Mr. Loveday had gone in to borrow a dose of fruit salts from Mr. Turnbull.

1709 J. Strype Ann. Reformation vi. 97 To pray the Queen..to be discharged of their own subsidies the first year of their fruits-paying.

1823 W. Cobbett Rural Rides in Cobbett's Weekly Polit. Reg. 13 Sept. 666 Great numbers of these shoots have fruit-spurs, which will have blossom, if not fruit, next year.

1796 W. Withering Arrangem. Brit. Plants (ed. 3) II. 17 Leaf-stalks, shorter than the fruit-stalks.

1830 J. Baxter Libr. Agric. & Hort. Knowl. 470 [Strawberries] Every runner is in its incipient state of formation, capable of becoming a fruit stalk.

1887 S. Hale Lett. (1919) 181 My idea is to come home in one of those fruit-steamers from Gibraltar.

1921 R. D. Paine Comrades Rolling Ocean vii. 111 Nothing ever happened excepting the arrival of the fruit steamers which took on thousands of bunches of bananas.

1577 B. Googe tr. C. Heresbach Foure Bks. Husbandry ii. f. 71 Fruite trees and Uines.

1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost v. 213 Where any row Of Fruit-trees..reachd too farr Thir pamperd boughes. View more context for this quotation

1830 J. Baxter Libr. Agric. & Hort. Knowl. 488 Three modes of pruning..first, the fruit tree method.

1898 E. A. Ormerod Handbk. Insects Injur. Fruits 197 (heading) Fruit-tree Bark Beetle.

1921 T. W. Sanders Fruit Foes i. 30 Fruit Tree Beetle (Scolytus rugulosus).—Both the beetle and the larvæ are injurious to fruit trees.

1642 J. Milton Apol. Smectymnuus 28 He greets us with a quantity of thum-ring posies. He has a fortune therefore good, because he is content with it. This is a piece of sapience not worth the brain of a fruit-trencher.

1883 Oxf. Guide-book [The picture-gallery of the Bodleian contains] Queen Elizabeth's fruit-trenchers.

c1449 R. Pecock Repressor (1860) 411 But thei ben fruyte users of tho godis.

1699 (title) Fruit Walls improved by inclining them to the Horizon.

1773 A. Grant Let. 14 May in Lett. from Mountains (1806) I. 80 She has built a fruit wall, a thing before unheard of here.

1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Fruictiere, a Fruit-wife; or woman that selleth fruits.

1673 J. Dryden Assignation iii. i. 29 She's as arrant a Fruit-woman as any is about Rome.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 358 Fruit women screamed.

1927 P. Macquoid & R. Edwards Dict. Eng. Furnit. III. 29 In common with other fruit woods, it [sc. pear wood] has been used from a very early period.

1939 E. Wenham Old Furnit. for Mod. Rooms i. 7 Bobbin-turned chairs of oak, or of some fruitwood.

1947 J. C. S. Brough Timbers for Woodwork xvi. 134 One of several ‘fruitwoods’ it [sc. apple wood] was in former days employed largely for domestic commodities.

1964 J. Gloag Englishman's Chair ix. 194 Elm seats, ash or yew bows, with arms and turned work in fruit wood or yew.

1971 Times 19 June 12/5 The marquetry of flowers, birds and grotesque masks is in ivory and fruitwood.

1555 W. Waterman tr. J. Boemus Fardle of Facions ii. ix. 205 The Gelonites, occupienge tilthe: liue by corne, and haue their frute yardes.

1850 Independent (N.Y.) 30 May 1/5 Touched by the evidence of physical evils, he makes these the causes, instead of the effects, of moral deprivation, and striving to cure them he loses his pains by striking at the branches or the fruit of the poisonous tree: the tree itself remains.

1854 T. Meyer tr. E. W. Hengstenberg Christol. Old Test. (new ed.) I. 8 Cain's murder of his brother comes into consideration only as an effect of the evil principle which was introduced into human nature by the first temptation; as indeed it appears in the book of Genesis itself as the fruit of the poisonous tree whose planting is detailed in chap. iii.]

1865 A. H. Bullock in Boston Daily Advertiser 29 June Apply the axe to the root, else the shade and perfume and fruit of the poisonous tree will spread and embitter the lifetime of another generation.

1968 Time (Electronic ed.) 21 June The three traumatic killings of the last five years, which should have taught us how bitter is the fruit of the poisoned tree of ideological passions, do not seem to have carried their lesson home.

2010 C. Nelson No University is Island ix. 235 Churchill's termination was unequivocally fruit of the poisoned tree of political outrage that prompted the whole process.

1939 N.Y. Times 12 Dec. 20/3 The trial judge must give opportunity..to the accused to prove that a substantial portion of the case against him was a fruit of the poisonous tree.

1947 Univ. Chicago Law Rev. 14 612 If the authorities persist in using drugs to obtain inadmissible involuntary statements, may they nevertheless use the facts learned through the statements, or are they barred from using the ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’?

1981 Globe & Mail (Toronto) (Nexis) 29 Jan. The draft charter incorporates a U.S. rule of evidence—the so-called ‘fruit of the poisoned tree’ rule—which means that unlawfully obtained evidence cannot be admitted in court.

2012 Daily Rec. (Baltimore, Maryland) (Nexis) 14 Dec. Any evidence police gained as a result of improperly obtaining that subscriber data should also be excluded as fruit of the poisonous tree.

a1639 J. Dyke Right Receiving of Christ (1640) xiii. 177 He is rooted in Christ, and therefore fruited by Christ.

1851 Beck's Florist Jan. 8 I have not fruited those sorts [of Strawberries].

1862 H. D. Thoreau Excursions (1863) 291 Their ‘Favorites’ [sc. apples]..when I have fruited them, commonly turn out very tame.

1882 W. B. Weeden Social Law Labor 25 For Capital is Labor fruited, saved and preserved.