apple

Book of Genesis
Frans Floris
Malmö Art Museum

PIE word
 *h₂ébōl
The noun is derived from Middle English appel (“Malus domestica fruit or tree, apple; any type of fruit, nut, or tuber; tree bearing fruit; (figurative) ball, sphere; (Christianity) forbidden fruit in Eden”), from Old English æppel (“apple; any type of fruit; (figurative) ball, sphere; eyeball”), from Proto-West Germanic *applu (“apple; any type of fruit”), from Proto-Germanic *aplaz (“apple; any type of fruit”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ébōl, *h₂ébl̥ (“apple”).
As regards sense 1.4 (“forbidden fruit”), the type of fruit eaten by Adam and Eve is not identified in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. It may have come to be identified with the apple because of the similarity between Latin mālum (“apple”) and malum (“evil; misery, torment; wrongdoing”).
The verb is derived from the noun.
cognates
* Danish æble
* Dutch appel
* German Apfel
* Ancient Greek ἄμπελος (ámpelos, “vine”) (possibly)
* Irish úll
* Lithuanian óbuolỹs
* Russian я́блоко (jábloko)
* Scots aipple
* Swedish äpple
* Welsh afal
* West Frisian apel

ref

From the collection of the Malmö Art Museum in Malmö, Scania, Sweden.

чӏва

common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus; fruit of the tree Malus domestica

omena

something which resembles the fruit of Malus domestica in shape or colour

the apple doesn't fall far from the tree

the apples on the other side of the wall are the sweetest

Him [man] by fraud I [Satan] have ſeduc'd / From his Creator, and the more to increaſe / Your vvonder, vvith an Apple; […]

1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC, signature [Ll4], recto, lines 485–487:

I read and re-read her letter, and some softened feelings stole into my heart, and dared to whisper paradisiacal dreams of love and joy; but the apple was already eaten, and the angel's arm bared to drive me from all hope.

1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter V, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume III, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 102:

Yes, of all human follies, love, / Methinks, hath served me best. / The Apple had done but little for me / If Eve had not done the rest.

1829, Robert Southey, “All for Love, or A Sinner Well Saved. Canto II.”, in All for Love; and The Pilgrim to Compostela, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 20:

Yes, fair Eve, just as Adam ate the apple, so beware!

1871, Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Congratulations, etc.”, in My Wife and I: Or, Harry Henderson’s History, New York, N.Y.: J. B. Ford and Company, →OCLC, page 399:

Yes mam. Woman ate the apple, and discovered sex, and lost all shame, and lift^([sic]) up her fig-leaf, and she must suffer the pains of hell. Monthly.

1975 (date written), Barry Reckord, “White Witch”, in For the Reckord: A Collection of Three Plays, London: Oberon Books, published 2010, →ISBN:

Sharon you've got a husband / And a family and a farm / I've got the apple of temptation / And a diamond snake around my arm

1976, Joni Mitchell (lyrics and music), “Song for Sharon”, in Hejira, Los Angeles, Calif.: Asylum Records, →OCLC:

A common, firm, round fruit produced by a tree of the genus Malus.

(Christianity) According to postbiblical Christian tradition, the fruit of the tree of knowledge which was eaten by Adam and Eve despite God commanding them not to do so; the forbidden fruit.


apple of Sodom

apple + of + Sodom; compare the common assumption that the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden was an apple. Possibly also imitative of Hebrew תַּפּוּחַ (tapuah, “apple”) + סְדוֹם (Sdom, “Sodom”).

(botany) The names of various plants, often bearing bitter or poisonous fruit.

A number of plants of the genus Solanum, the nightshades.

The bitter apple, bitterball, or bitter tomato (Solanum incanum), a plant native to sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and India.


lotus

Unadapted borrowing from Latin lōtus, from Ancient Greek λωτός (lōtós). Doublet of lote. First attested in the 1540s

A water lily, genus Nymphaea, especially those of Egypt or India.

Diospyros lotus
Diospyros lotus#Translingual

A number of other plants bearing lotus in their scientific or common names (see Derived terms below).

Diospyros lotus, date plum or Caucasian persimmon.

Lotus, a terrestrial genus with small flowers that includes bird's-foot trefoils and deervetches.

Ziziphus lotus
Ziziphus lotus#Translingual

Ziziphus lotus, a shrub species with edible fruit.

Since the '60s ended abruptly on January 1, 1970, everyone, protestors, police and all, fell to the ground in a full lotus.

1979, Charlie King (lyrics and music), “Vaguely Reminiscent of the Sixties (The Story)”:


moly

en-noun

moly (countable and uncountable, plural molies)

From Latin mōly, from Ancient Greek μῶλυ (môlu) (probably a loanword).

It excels Homers moly, cures this, falling sickness, and almost all other infirmities.

1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition II, section 4, member 1, subsection iii:

Or, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, / How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly,)

1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Lotos-Eaters”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 114:

So spoke the Radiant One; then gave me the magic herb, pulling it from the ground and showing me in what form it grew; its root was black, its flower milk-white. Its name among the gods is moly.

1980, Homer, translated by Walter Shrewing, The Odyssey, Oxford, published 1998, page 120:

I would need all the secret herbs of Dicte […] . I would need as well the rest of my moly stores.

2018, Madeline Miller, Circe, Bloomsbury 2019, p. 113

(Greek mythology) A magic herb or plant used by Odysseus to overcome Circe.

Any plant associated with the mythological moly, especially the European allium, Allium moly.


Yggdrasil

Borrowed from Old Norse Yggdrasill; commonly accepted as being composed Yggr (“terrible”) + drasill (“steed”), where “steed” refers to a hanging tree or possibly from *dʰer- (“to hold, support”).

Yet it is not easy to pluck out the heart of its mystery; and the descriptions of certain ancient representatives of Yggdrasil do not lessen the difficulty.

1863, The London Quarterly Review, volumes 113-114, page 117:

With nostrils and legs akimbo, she towered over him like some human Yggdrasill, blotting out the sun.

1963, Spike Milligan, chapter 1, in Puckoon, page 1:

1996, Carolyne Larrington (editor and translator), The Seeress's Prophecy, The Poetic Edda, page 6,
I know that an ash-tree stands called Yggdrasill,
a high tree, soaked with shining loam;
from there come the dews which fall in the valley,
ever green, it stands over the well of fate.

In Norse mythology, for example, the World Tree, or Yggdrasil, connected the nine existences that straddled the worlds of gods and men with its mighty roots. Yggdrasil was reputedly a gigantic ash tree (and was the central feature of Norse cosmology), around the base of which the serpent Níôhöggr had twisted its body.

2007, Bob Curran, Ian Daniels, Walking with the Green Man: Father of the Forest, Spirit of Nature, page 66:

“Yggdrasil!” Gudbjartur's voice was filled with awe. “It is Yggdrasil, the world-tree!” He looked at Halfdan, his eyes wide. “The Sacred Grove is here in this land!”

2007, J. A. Hunsinger, The Settlers: An Axe of Iron Novel, page 333:

(Norse mythology) An immense ash tree that is central in Norse cosmology, believed to connect the nine worlds.


vegetable lamb

A shortened version of vegetable lamb of Tartary.

(mythology) A legendary plant believed to grow sheep from its branches.


barometz

Friedrich Justin Bertuch
Sir Richard Clayton, 1st Baronet

Possibly a corruption of Russian баране́ц (baranéc, “species of club moss (genus Lycopodium)”, from бара́н (barán, “ram (male sheep)”) + -ец (-ec, diminutive suffix)).

refn

From D[emetrius] de La Croix (1791) Richardus Clayton [i.e., Sir Richard Clayton, 1st Baronet], transl., Connubia florum latino carmine demonstrata, Bath, Somerset: Ex. typographia S. Hazard, →OCLC.

From F[riedrich] J[ustin] Bertuch (1806) Bilderbuch für Kinder: enthaltend eine angenehme Sammlung von Thieren, Pflanzen, Blumen, Früchten, Mineralien, Trachten und allerhand andern unterrichtenden Gegenständen aus dem Reiche der Natur, der Künste und Wissenschaften, alle nach den besten Originalen gewählt, gestochen, und mit einer kurzen wissenschaftlichen, und den Verstandes-Kräften eines Kindes angemessenen Erklärung begleitet, Weimar: Im Verlage des Industrie-Comptoirs, →OCLC.

der

Much wonder is made of the Boramez, that ſtrange plant-animall or vegetable Lamb of Tartary, which Wolves delight to feed on, which hath the ſhape of a Lamb, affordeth a bloudy juice upon breaking, and liveth while the plants be conſumed about it; and yet if all this be no more then the ſhape of a Lamb in the flower or ſeed, upon the top of the ſtalk, as we meet with the formes of Bees, Flies and Dogs in ſome others, he hath ſeen nothing that ſhall much wonder at it.

1650, Thomas Browne, “Of Some Others”, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC, 3rd book, page 152:

Cradled in ſnow and fann'd by arctic air / Shines, gentle Barometz! thy golden hair; / Rooted in earth each cloven hood deſcends, / And round and round her flexile neck ſhe bends; / Crops the grey coral moſs, and hoary thyme, / Or laps with roſy tongue the melting rime; [...]

1789, [Erasmus Darwin], The Botanic Garden; a Poem, in Two Parts. […], London: J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1791, →OCLC, part II (The Loves of the Plants; 3rd edition), page 30, lines 283–288:

[...] I say to you what I should say if any little Barometzes should come under my care. It is more on the imaginary side than the matter of fact.

1919 February 15, The Garden: […], volume 83, London: Hudson and Kearns, →OCLC, page 69, column 3:

It seemed to be at least as good a vegetable lamb as Lepas was an unripe vegetable bird, and one version of the story itself is probably explained by it. That is the version in which the barometz grows out of the ground, being attached to its root system by its umbilical cord and capable of feeding only as far as that cord will reach—a perfect counterpart to the Jidra of the Talmud.

1948, Willy Ley, The Lungfish, the Dodo and the Unicorn: An Excursion in Romantic Zoology, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC, page 82:

One has only to consult [Jorge Luis] Borges's own "Book of Imaginary Beings" to encounter chimeras, phoenixes, basilisks, barometzes (the last a kind of vegetable lamb) and the like.

1987 April 12, Cynthia Ozick, “The Library of Nonexistent Classics”, in The New York Times Book Review, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2017-11-05, page 12:

However, one night when I was hard at work in one of the powder mills outside the fortress, I was captured along with some others by a band of Tartars and carried off so deep into their territory that I not only saw borametz, the legendary sheep-shaped melon, growing, I ate it.

1999, Johann Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, “On the Short and Diverting Road by which He Came Home to His Da”, in Mike Mitchell, transl., Simplicissimus, Sawtry, Cambridgeshire: Dedalus Books, published 2010, →ISBN:

(mythology) A purported zoophyte, half-animal and half-plant, said to grow in the form of a sheep.

植物羊

half-animal and half-plant said to grow in the form of a sheep — see also vegetable lamb

A singular vegetable production met with in the deserts, concerning which various fables have been related, is a kind of fern called the barometz, or Scythian lamb; the latter name being given to it from its woolly body, attached to the ground by a long slender stalk, affording a distant resemblance to a lamb grazing.

1807, J[ohn] Aikin, “Chinese Tatary”, in Geographical Delineations, or A Compendious View of the Natural and Political State of All Parts of the Globe, Philadelphia, Pa.: Printed for F. Nichols, by Kimber, Conrad, & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 256–257:

[page 7] The Tartarian, or Scythian lamb, or borametz, is a plant, of which many miraculous tales are told. Travellers say that it exactly resembles a lamb, and that its pulp is similar to the flesh of lamb; and that it contains blood, &c.; but these accounts require confirmation. [...] [page 8, footnote †] [The plants] appear to be originally the roots or stalks of certain vegetables, probably of the capillary kind, covered with a woolly moss, which, naturally naturally bearing resemblance to the figure of a lamb, have been helped out and brought nearer to it by art, and the addition of new parts. Sir Hans Sloane, and Breynius [Jacob Breyne], give us the figures and descriptions of such borametzes in their collections.

1826, Eliza P. Reid, “Part I. Rice, Licorice, Maize, or Indian Wheat, and Some Other Plants.”, in Historical and Literary Botany, […], volume III, Windsor, Berkshire: C. Andrews, […], →OCLC, pages 7 and 8:

Nor can we affirm that this plant of [Gustav] Kunze is not that which gave rise to the tales of wonder, for, although the species was first botanically determined by Kunze from [Hugh] Cuming's Philippine Island specimens, and although it is shown to be a native also of Sumatra, yet we have lately (in 'Kew Garden Miscellany,' vol. ix. p. 334) had occasion to record the fact of our having received specimens of the same Fern from Hongkong, Chusan, and South China, of which country the Barometz is considered a native.

1861, William Jackson Hooker, “Introductory Notice”, in The British Ferns; […], London: Lovell Reeve, […], →OCLC, footnote:

A portion of the Baromez does present a rude resemblance in its shape to the figure of an animal, and is covered by a soft downy substance, which may be compared to a silky fleece, of a reddish-brown colour, and which gives to it more the appearance of a dog than a lamb.

[1866], “The Field and the Heath”, in Beauties and Wonders of Vegetable Life; […], London: The Religious Tract Society, […], →OCLC, page 263:

Cibotium. This is a small distinct genus of robust-growing and highly ornamental plants; and, though generally considered Tree Ferns, some species have a decumbent rhizome, of which the Barometz, or Vegetable Lamb, is a good example.

1868, Benjamin Samuel Williams, “Descriptive List of Exotic Ferns”, in Select Ferns and Lycopods: British and Exotic. […], London: Published and sold by the author, →OCLC, page 93:

Cibotium Barometz frond resembles the Cibotium Scheidei but the growth is different as well as the color. The Barometz is more stiff and upright where the Scheidei droops and is more delicate and lighter green.

1949, The Begonian: […], Long Beach, Calif.: American Begonia Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 265, column 2:

A golden chicken fern or woolly fern (Cibotium barometz), the rhizomes of which are covered in furry brown hair; the legend (sense 1) is supposed to have arisen because, when inverted, the rhizomes with stalks growing out of them resemble lambs.


heaven tree

A mythical tree or vine which figures in some primitive beliefs as affording the means of ascent from underground regions to the surface, or from the surface to the sky. Forms of this myth are found in Malacca, Borneo, Celebes, New Zealand, and Polynesia.


Zaqqum

(Islam) A tree that grows in Jahannam (Hell), whose dwellers are compelled to eat the bitter fruit.


peridexion

From Ancient Greek περιδέξιον (peridéxion), used in the Physiologus.

The inscription appears to represent a very rare medieval allegory for the church, found in only a very few medieval manuscripts and known as the peridexion tree. The story is that the peridexion tree was to be found only in far-off India, and that it bore the most marvellously sweet fruit that attracted birds to its branches from far and wide. However, at the base of the tree lived a dragon or serpent.

2015, Matthew Champion, chapter 17, in Medieval Graffiti: The Lost Voices of England’s Churches, London: Ebury Press, →ISBN, page 165:

A legendary tree believed to grow in India that attracts doves and repels dragons.


Ṭūbā

Transliteration of Arabic طُوبَى (ṭūbā).