apple Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun fruit with red or yellow or green skin and sweet to tart crisp whitish flesh
  2. noun native Eurasian tree widely cultivated in many varieties for its firm rounded edible fruits
    orchard apple tree; Malus pumila.

WordNet

Ap"ple noun
Etymology
OE. appel, eppel, AS. æppel, æpl; akin to Fries. & D. appel, OHG, aphul, aphol, G. apfel, Icel. epli, Sw. äple, Dan. æble, Gael. ubhall, W. afal, Arm. aval, Lith. oblys, Russ. iabloko; of unknown origin.
Definitions
  1. The fleshy pome or fruit of a rosaceous tree (Pyrus malus) cultivated in numberless varieties in the temperate zones. ✍ The European crab apple is supposed to be the original kind, from which all others have sprung.
  2. (bot.) Any tree genus Pyrus which has the stalk sunken into the base of the fruit; an apple tree.
  3. Any fruit or other vegetable production resembling, or supposed to resemble, the apple; as, apple of love, or love apple (a tomato), balsam apple, egg apple, oak apple.
  4. Anything round like an apple; as, an apple of gold. Apple is used either adjectively or in combination; as, apple paper or apple-paper, apple-shaped, apple blossom, apple dumpling, apple pudding.
Ap"ple intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To grow like an apple; to bear apples. Holland.

Webster 1913