The English Oracle

Is there a familial term for apples and pears?

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Track title: Music Box Puzzles

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Chapters
00:00 Is There A Familial Term For Apples And Pears?
00:41 Accepted Answer Score 49
00:54 Answer 2 Score 29
01:37 Answer 3 Score 2
02:07 Answer 4 Score 3
02:24 Thank you

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Full question
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Tags
#terminology #food #biology

#avk47



ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 49


Yes, they are pomes

a fruit consisting of a fleshy enlarged receptacle and a tough central core containing the seeds, e.g., an apple or pear.

Pome:Google dictionary.




ANSWER 2

Score 29


The corresponding expression to citrus fruit is pomaceous fruit(s):

Thus, the apple, crab, pear, quince, medlar, and possibly others are designated as “pomaceous" fruits, each having certain specific (as contrasted with general) natural characters in common. — US Dept. of Agriculture, Agriculture Yearbook, 1926.

I could not use a Google Book NGram to check for frequency because of the massive false hits for pome, but I think I’ve seen the adjective + fruit more often than the noun pome, in contrast to drupe, which appears to be more frequent than the adjective drupaceous.




ANSWER 3

Score 3


In the world of horticulture and pomology (the study of fruit), the term "pome fruit" to describe this group is common everyday language in 2019. Citrus and "stone fruit" (plums, peaches and cherries) are two other big categories of tree fruit.




ANSWER 4

Score 2


Regarding whether "pome" is used other than as a technical term in botany, I can provide at least one example of its general use in the poem "Old Sir Faulk" by Edith Sitwell which describes

"An old dull mome / with a head like a pome."

The poem is part of the collection Façade, written to be recited over instrumental music by William Walton.

More details and the full text may be found at: https://www.chandos.net/chanimages/Booklets/CH8869.pdf with the poem on page 16.