Apple
Did you know that the Latin word for apple and the Latin word for evil are the same word? Yup. Did you know that a cucumber used to be called an ‘earth apple’, not to be confused with a ‘road apple’?
The word apple is almost unchanged from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word abel (apple) and Proto-Germanic apalaz which is the source of Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Dutch appel, Old Norse eple, Old High German apful, and German Apfel.
When Old English appel appeared, it was a generic term for any kind of fruit other than berries. For example, Old English fingerappla meant dates (literally, finger apples) and appel of paradis meant banana. The word pineapple is a remnant of this old pattern.
Some vegetables didn’t escape this apple connection; e.g., eorpaeppla was the aforementioned cucumber. In French, an ‘earth apple’ is a pomme de terre (i.e., a potato).
So, what’s the connection between apples and evil? Did someone mention the Biblical Garden of Eden? The connection between apples and evil is the result of a pun created in the 4th century CE by Jerome, the translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible from Greek and Hebrew, an opinionated and short-tempered man who also apparently had a sense of humour.
In brief, in the Garden of Eden story, Adam eats the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There is no mention of apples. The generic Hebrew word for fruit was peri. When translating peri into Latin, Jerome chose the word malus, a word which was both the noun malus (the generic word for fruit) and the adjective malus, also malum, (evil). Malus the fruit and malus the evil looked the same in writing but were pronounced slightly differently in speech. Hence the pun (“Want some fruit?” Nudge, nudge, wink, wink).
Centuries later, in English versions of the Bible, apple, the generic term for fruit, was used when translating Latin malus. Hence the connection between the words apple and evil.
Finally, representations of actual apples do not appear in the religious art and literature of Western Europe until the 16th and 17th centuries.
Reference: Online Etymological Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/04/30/526069512/paradise-lost-how-the-apple-became-the-forbidden-fruit
https://medium.com/the-philipendium/a-web-of-word-connections-apple-94f9e95ec0b6
The word apple is almost unchanged from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word abel (apple) and Proto-Germanic apalaz which is the source of Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Dutch appel, Old Norse eple, Old High German apful, and German Apfel.
When Old English appel appeared, it was a generic term for any kind of fruit other than berries. For example, Old English fingerappla meant dates (literally, finger apples) and appel of paradis meant banana. The word pineapple is a remnant of this old pattern.
Some vegetables didn’t escape this apple connection; e.g., eorpaeppla was the aforementioned cucumber. In French, an ‘earth apple’ is a pomme de terre (i.e., a potato).
So, what’s the connection between apples and evil? Did someone mention the Biblical Garden of Eden? The connection between apples and evil is the result of a pun created in the 4th century CE by Jerome, the translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible from Greek and Hebrew, an opinionated and short-tempered man who also apparently had a sense of humour.
In brief, in the Garden of Eden story, Adam eats the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There is no mention of apples. The generic Hebrew word for fruit was peri. When translating peri into Latin, Jerome chose the word malus, a word which was both the noun malus (the generic word for fruit) and the adjective malus, also malum, (evil). Malus the fruit and malus the evil looked the same in writing but were pronounced slightly differently in speech. Hence the pun (“Want some fruit?” Nudge, nudge, wink, wink).
Centuries later, in English versions of the Bible, apple, the generic term for fruit, was used when translating Latin malus. Hence the connection between the words apple and evil.
Finally, representations of actual apples do not appear in the religious art and literature of Western Europe until the 16th and 17th centuries.
Reference: Online Etymological Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/04/30/526069512/paradise-lost-how-the-apple-became-the-forbidden-fruit
https://medium.com/the-philipendium/a-web-of-word-connections-apple-94f9e95ec0b6
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