Fruit and fruitcake, as well as many variations, are slang or even sexual slang terms which have various origins but modern usage tend to primarily refer to gay men and sometimes other LGBT people. Usually used as pejoratives, the terms have also been re-appropriated as insider terms of endearment within LGBT communities. Many modern pop culture references within the gay nightlife like "Fruit Machine" and "Fruit Packers" have been appropriated for reclaiming usage, similar to queer and dyke.

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).

Costermongers and Cockney rhyming slang

A costermonger was a street seller of fruit and vegetables. The term, which derived from the words costard (a type of apple) and monger, i.e. "seller", came to be particularly associated with the "barrow boys" of London who would sell their produce from a wheelbarrow or wheeled market stall. Costermongers have existed in London since at least the 16th century, when they were mentioned by Shakespeare and Marlowe and were probably most numerous during the Victorian era, when there were said to be over 30,000 in 1860. They gained a fairly unsavoury reputation for their "low habits, general improvidence, love of gambling, total want of education, disregard for lawful marriage ceremonies, and their use of a peculiar slang language". Two examples of their slang are referring to potatoes as "bog-oranges" likely developed from the phrase "Irish fruit" also referring to potatoes and "cool the delo nammow" which means 'watch out for that old woman' with the words essentially backwards; cool (look), delo (old) and nammow (woman).