[In allusion to the story of the Fall.]
1. A name given to a variety of the Lime or Bergamotte (Citrus Limetta), and sometimes to varieties of the Orange and Shaddock.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. 227. There came two of their Barkes neere vnto our ship laden with fruite … which wee call Adams apples.
1615. Sandys, Trav., 224. The apples of Adam … the iuyce wherof they tunne vp and send into Turky.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., Adam’s Apple … a Fruit but little different from Lemons.
1866. Lindley & Moore, Treas. Bot., I. 292/2. Among them [limes] is one called by the Italians Pomo d’Adamo, because they fancy the depressions on its surface appear as if it still bore the marks of Adam’s teeth.
2. The projection formed in the neck by the anterior extremity of the thyroid cartilage of the larynx.
1755. Johnson, Adam’s-apple, a prominent part of the throat.
1847. Craig, Adam’s-apple, so called from a superstitious notion that a piece of the forbidden fruit stuck in Adam’s throat, and occasioned this prominence.
1865. Daily Tel., 20 July. Having the noose adjusted and secured by tightening above his ‘Adam’s apple.’
1872. Huxley, Physiol., VII. 178. The thyroid cartilage … constitutes what is commonly called ‘Adam’s apple.’
1924. Kenneth Burke, trans. Mann’s Death in Venice, in Dial, LXXVI. March, 214. His head was raised so that the Adam’s-apple protruded hard and bare on a scrawny neck emerging from a loose sport-shirt.
