Word.ws English Dictionary

fruit of the poisonous tree

fruit of the poisonous tree noun: evidence that has been obtained as the result of an illegal act on the part of law enforcement personnel (such as an unlawful warrantless search, or continued questioning of a witness who has invoked the right of counsel), and which is therefore excluded from being admitted as evidence in a trial.

Noun

fruit of the poisonous tree (countable and uncountable, plural fruits of the poisonous tree)

  1. (US, idiomatic) Evidence that has been obtained as the result of an illegal act on the part of law enforcement personnel (such as an unlawful warrantless search, or continued questioning of a witness who has invoked the right of counsel), and which is therefore excluded from being admitted as evidence in a trial.

Forms of fruit of the poisonous tree

pluralfruits of the poisonous tree

Questions about fruit of the poisonous tree

What does fruit of the poisonous tree mean?
Fruit of the poisonous tree means evidence that has been obtained as the result of an illegal act on the part of law enforcement personnel (such as an unlawful warrantless search, or continued questioning of a witness who has invoked the right of counsel), and which is therefore excluded from being admitted as evidence in a trial.
What part of speech is fruit of the poisonous tree?
Fruit of the poisonous tree is a noun.
What is the plural of fruit of the poisonous tree?
The plural of fruit of the poisonous tree is fruits of the poisonous tree.

Words near fruit of the poisonous tree in the dictionary

  1. fruit moon
  2. fruit moons
  3. fruit ninja champion
  4. fruit ninja champions
  5. fruit of one's loins
  6. fruit of the poisonous tree
  7. fruit of the sea
  8. fruit of the union
  9. fruit pigeon
  10. fruit pigeons
  11. fruit punch

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fruit of the poisonous tree (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-fruit of the poisonous tree.ogg.

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