apples

Noun

apple (plural apples)

1. The fruit of the tree Malus domestica, chiefly with a green, red, or yellow skin, cultivated in temperate climates for cidermaking, cooking, and eating.
   • All apples eaten ſoone after yͭ they be gathered, are cold, hard to digeſt, and do make ill and corrupted bloud, but being wel kept vntill yͤ next winter, or the year folowing, eatẽ [eaten] after meales, they are right holeſome, & doe confyrme the ſtomacke, & make good digeſtion, ſpecially if they...153[9], Thomas Elyot, “Of Apples”, in The Castel of Helth […], London: […] Thomæ Bertheleti […], →OCLC, book II, folio 21, recto
2. Often with a qualifying word: any fruit or vegetable, or any other thing (such as a cone or gall) produced by a plant, especially if from a tree and similar to the fruit of Malus domestica (noun sense 1.1).
   • custard apple rose apple thorn apple
3. Something which resembles the fruit of Malus domestica (noun sense 1.1) in shape (such as a ball, breast, or globe) or colour.
   • [H]old a round ball or hollovv apple of glaſſe full of vvater againſt the Sunne, it vvill be ſo hot, that it is ready to burne any cloth that it toucheth.1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “[Book XXXVI.] The First Invention of Glasse, and the Manner of Making It. Of a Kind of Glasse, Called Obsidianum. Also of Sundrie Kinds of...
4. (informal) The round, fleshy part of a cheek between the eye and the corner of the mouth when a person is smiling.
5. The surface of revolution of a circular arc of an angle greater than 180° rotated about the straight line passing through the arc's two endpoints.
6. In full apple bowl: a round bowl of a tobacco pipe; also, a tobacco pipe with such a bowl.

See all 25 meanings of apple