apple
Americannoun
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apples
plural
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the usually round, red or yellow, edible fruit of a small tree, Malus sylvestris, of the rose family.
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the tree, cultivated in most temperate regions.
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the fruit of any of certain other species of tree of the same genus.
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any of these trees.
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any of various other similar fruits, or fruitlike products or plants, as the custard apple, love apple, May apple, or oak apple.
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Informal. anything resembling an apple in size and shape, as a ball, especially a baseball.
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Bowling. an ineffectively bowled ball.
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Slang. a red capsule containing a barbiturate, especially secobarbital.
noun
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a rosaceous tree, Malus sieversii , native to Central Asia but widely cultivated in temperate regions in many varieties, having pink or white fragrant flowers and firm rounded edible fruits See also crab apple
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the fruit of this tree, having red, yellow, or green skin and crisp whitish flesh
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the wood of this tree
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any of several unrelated trees that have fruits similar to the apple, such as the custard apple, sugar apple, and May apple See also love apple oak apple thorn apple
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a person or thing that is very precious or much loved
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a person with a corrupting influence
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of apple
First recorded before 900; Middle English appel, Old English æppel; cognate with Old Frisian, Dutch appel, Old Saxon apl, appul, Old High German apful ( German Apfel ), Crimean Gothic apel, from unattested Germanic aplu (akin to Old Norse epli, from unattested apljan ); Old Irish ubull (neuter), Welsh afal, Breton aval, from unrecorded pre-Celtic ǫblu; Lithuanian óbuolas, -ỹs, Latvian âbuol(i)s (with reshaped suffix), Old Prussian woble, perhaps Thracian (din)upla, (sin)upyla “wild pumpkin,” Old Church Slavonic (j)ablŭko (representing unrecorded ablŭ-ko, neuter), from unattested Balto-Slavic āblu-. Cf. Avalon
Explanation
An apple is a round fruit with red or green skin and a whitish inside. One variety of apple might be sweet, another sour. The apple isn't just a fruit. It's a symbol — from the apples eaten by Adam and Eve in the Biblical creation story, which symbolize the loss of innocent to the expression "American as apple pie" to mean something that is wholesome. The "apple of your eye" is the person who delights you — maybe you are the apple of your grandfather's eye. He might tell you, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," meaning the fruit is good for your health.
Vocabulary lists containing apple
Non-Color Words to Use When Describing Color
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The event in Cheshire will not take place this October following a significantly reduced harvest from the estate's collection of about 300 apple and pear trees.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
Nobody does, and she was like, you can’t picture an apple in your head?
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2026
Next year, as a single filer, the surviving spouse will face higher tax on the same income, making this potentially their last bite of the low-tax apple.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 22, 2026
Myers then instructed them on climbing apple trees safely, and sent them out to pick apples for cider.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026
All around the school were apple trees, and all of the kids were safe in their branches, with Rufus, eating pie.
From "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan
“Unless you’re going to throw everything out and start over again, you’re going to have a very incoherent thing. Unless you have a clear strategy, you’re going to have some apples and oranges.”
From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2026
Myers then instructed them on climbing apple trees safely, and sent them out to pick apples for cider.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026
Quips fell out of her like apples from a tree, ripening and landing at just the right time in any conversation.
From Salon ● Aug. 28, 2026
Neil MacDonald, who manages more than 1,000 acres of Somerset orchards, says he has watched half his apples fall before they have ripened, because the trees are stressed by the drought.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
Maybe they didn’t know humans would rather eat apples than mud.
From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
