Origin and Historical Usage
In A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address author Leslie Dunkling traces the friendly use of the phrase old fruit (and rarely old tin of fruit) to the 1920s in Britain possibly deriving from the phrase fruit of the womb. In the United States, however, both fruit and fruitcake are seen as negative with fruitcake likely originating from "nutty as a fruitcake" (a crazy person).
Read more about this topic: Fruit (slang)
Famous quotes containing the words origin, historical and/or usage:
“Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.”
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