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)
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