Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Fruit \Fruit\, n. [OE. fruit, frut, F. fruit, from L. fructus enjoyment, product, fruit, from frui, p. p. fructus, to enjoy; akin to E. brook, v. t. See Brook, v. t., and cf. Fructify, Frugal.]
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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.
Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof.
--Ex. xxiii. 10. (Hort.) The pulpy, edible seed vessels of certain plants, especially those grown on branches above ground, as apples, oranges, grapes, melons, berries, etc. See
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3. (Bot.) The ripened ovary of a flowering plant, with its contents and whatever parts are consolidated with it.
Note: Fruits are classified as fleshy, drupaceous, and dry. Fleshy fruits include berries, gourds, and melons, orangelike fruits and pomes; drupaceous fruits are stony within and fleshy without, as peaches, plums, and cherries; and dry fruits are further divided into achenes, follicles, legumes, capsules, nuts, and several other kinds.
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(Bot.) The spore cases or conceptacles of flowerless plants, as of ferns, mosses, algae, etc., with the spores contained in them.
6. The produce of animals; offspring; young; as, the fruit of the womb, of the loins, of the body.
King Edward's fruit, true heir to the English crown.
--Shak.6. That which is produced; the effect or consequence of any action; advantageous or desirable product or result; disadvantageous or evil consequence or effect; as, the fruits of labor, of self-denial, of intemperance.
The fruit of rashness.
--Shak.What I obtained was the fruit of no bargain.
--Burke.They shall eat the fruit of their doings.
--Is. iii 10.The fruits of this education became visible.
--Macaulay.Note: Fruit is frequently used adjectively, signifying of, for, or pertaining to a fruit or fruits; as, fruit bud; fruit frame; fruit jar; fruit knife; fruit loft; fruit show; fruit stall; fruit tree; etc.
Fruit bat (Zo["o]l.), one of the Frugivora; -- called also fruit-eating bat.
Fruit bud (Bot.), a bud that produces fruit; -- in most oplants the same as the power bud.
Fruit dot (Bot.), a collection of fruit cases, as in ferns. See Sorus.
Fruit fly (Zo["o]l.), 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.
Fruit jar, a jar for holding preserved fruit, usually made of glass or earthenware.
Fruit pigeon (Zo["o]l.), one of numerous species of pigeons of the family Carpophagid[ae], inhabiting India, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. They feed largely upon fruit. and are noted for their beautiful colors.
Fruit sugar (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.
Fruit tree (Hort.), a tree cultivated for its edible fruit.
Fruit worm (Zo["o]l.), one of numerous species of insect larv[ae]: which live in the interior of fruit. They are mostly small species of Lepidoptera and Diptera.
Small fruits (Hort.), currants, raspberries, strawberries, etc.
Wiktionary
n. 1 any insect of the Tephritidae family, whose larvae damage plant tissue. 2 any insect of the Drosophilidae family, whose larvae feed on ripening fruit, especially the species ''Drosophila melanogaster'' that is used in genetic research.
WordNet
n. any of numerous small insects whose larvae feed on fruits [syn: pomace fly]
Wikipedia
Fruit Fly is a 2009 musical film with gay and Asian-American themes, directed by H.P. Mendoza, who wrote the screenplay for Colma The Musical (2007). The film, made entirely in San Francisco, premiered on March 15, 2009 at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. It had a limited one-week run in New York on September 24, 2010.
Fruit fly may refer to several organisms:
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Tephritidae, a family of large, colorfully marked flies
- Bactrocera oleae or olive fruit fly, native to the Eastern Hemisphere and an invasive species in North America
- Bactrocera tryoni or Queensland fruit fly, an invasive pest species in Australia
- Bactrocera cucurbitae or melon fly, agricultural pest in Asian countries
- Vidalia (fruit fly), a genus
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Drosophilidae, a family of smaller flies, including:
- Drosophila, the genus of small fruit flies and vinegar flies
- Drosophila melanogaster or common fruit fly, an important model organism in modern biology
- Drosophila suzukii or Asian fruit fly, native to northeast and southeast Asia and an invasive species in North America
Fruit fly may also refer to:
- Fruit Fly (film), 2009 film directed by H. P. Mendoza
- Fruit (slang)#Fruit fly, LGBT slang with a meaning similar to fag hag
Category:Animal common name disambiguation pages
Usage examples of "fruit fly".
You'll never hear of this when the Parliamentary Estimates for Mordon Health Centre are being passed, but our scientists in Mordon have either discovered or refined to the purest and most deadly forms the germs for causing plague, typhus, smallpox, rabbit and urdulant fever in man: hog cholera, fowl pest, Newcastle disease, rinderpest, foot-and-mouth, glanders and anthrax in livestock: and blights like the Japanese beetle, European corn borer, Mediterranean fruit fly, boll-weevil, citrus cancer, wheat rust and heaven knows what else in plants.
For the bulk of this century a favoured organism for geneticists to study, because of the ease with which it can be maintained, its rapid breeding cycle and the possibility of studying populations of many thousands, has been the tiny fruit fly (sometimes called vinegar fly), Drosophila melanogaster, which gathers like specks of coal dust, seemingly magnetically attracted to over-ripe fruit.
Not that those things would interest them as such, any more than the white eyes of the fruit fly interest us as white eyes.
Scientists of your time have isolated the gene for a fruit fly that is eyeless.
At first glance it looked like a monstrously large fruit fly with a pair of sharp talons descending from the front end of its elongated jet-black body.
They have, they think, perfected a variety of fruit fly that will consume residual oil pollution, and they are breeding it in sufficient number to colonize the Gulf coastline where the spill of 'ninety-five still festers.
It was a flying creature, the size of a fruit fly, that managed to glide from plant to plant when the wind was down by means of a freely rotating set of blades, like an autogiro.
It was nothing like a fruit fly and wanted nothing to do with fruit flies.
Blue then showed her two small eight-legged creatures, one red and one blue, each the size of a fruit fly.