Dictionary

fruitage en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree Latin frūctus Old French fruitbor. Middle English fruyt English fruit Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂tos Proto-Italic *-ātos Latin -ātus Proto-Indo-European *-ikos Proto-Italic *-ikos Latin -icus Latin -āticus Latin -āticum Old French -agebor. Middle English -age English -age English fruitage From fruit + -age.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) Fruit, collectively.
   • The luscious fruitage clustereth mellowly, / Goldenkernelled, goldencored, / Sunset-ripened above on the tree. 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Hesperides”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, stanza IV, page 106:
   • The tendency of modern science is to close this gate—though it can never stop the search for it—the vague desire after some kind of communication, some kind of poetic identification with the soul that reveals itself through the rolling year, the mysterious presence that is felt to lie behind the outbuddings of spring, the wealth and greenery of summer, with all its whisperings and music and rippling laughter, the blue of autumn, with its fruitage, its expansive horizons, its glory veiling temporary decay. 1889 March, Walter Besant, “The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies”, in The Gentleman's Magazine, volume 266, number 1899, page 259:
   • For them no spring, with gentle care, / Paints the young bud and scents the air; / Nor autumn bids the loaded stem / Scatter its fruitage fair for them. 1815, Lydia Sigourney, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, The Giving of the Bible to the Esquimaux, page 10:
2. (countable, uncountable) Product or result of any action, effect, good, or ill.

Forms