Apples

How to spell apples

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce apples

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does apples mean?

1. nounMore than one apple, the round firm fruit of the apple tree, usually red, green, or yellow.

Apples in a sentence

• She packed two apples in his lunchbox each morning.

• The orchard sells apples by the crate every autumn.

Where does apples come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the plural of apple, which descends from the Old English word æppel, a native Germanic term for the fruit and, in its earliest days, for fruit in general. The same root shows up across the Germanic languages, including Old Norse epli, Dutch appel, and German Apfel, all tracing back to a shared Proto-Germanic form aplaz. For centuries the word was loose enough to cover almost any round fruit growing on a tree, which is why old texts sometimes call other produce a kind of apple. The plural was simply formed by adding the regular -s ending, and because the word ends in a doubled p before the -le, the only mild care needed in spelling apples is remembering that doubled consonant. It remains one of the oldest and most stable words in everyday English, unchanged in meaning for well over a thousand years.

How the word is built

• apple (the fruit, from Old English æppel)
• -s (plural suffix)