Word for Wednesday: Pineapple

Our Word for Wednesday theme for July is fruit.

The word fruit dates back to the late-twelfth century when it was used to mean ‘any vegetable product useful to humans or animals’. It entered English via Old French and comes from the Latin ‘fructus’ meaning ‘an enjoyment, delight, or satisfaction’ as well as ‘proceeds, produce, fruit, and crops’. The word took on its modern meaning in the early thirteenth century.

So far we’ve looked at the word banana, and today’s word is pineapple.

A pineapple is a large sweet fleshy tropical fruit with a tuft of stiff pointed leaves.

What’s interesting about the word pineapple is that when it was first used in English it didn't mean fruit we've come to associate it with today. While the first recorded use of the word in reference to this fruit was in the 1660s, pineapple has been used in English since the late-fourteenth century to describe what we now call a 'pine cone'. When it was first introduced to English, the word apple ('æppel' in Old English) could be used to describe any type of fruit, thus it makes sense that pineapple used to mean ‘fruit’ from a pine tree. This is also why the forbidden fruit in the Biblical story of Adam and Eve is so often depicted as the fruit we call by the name apple today.

08 Jul 2020
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Word for Wednesday: Pineapple

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