a. [f. FRUIT sb. + -Y1.]

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  1.  Of or pertaining to or resembling fruit.

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1657.  R. Ligon, Barbadoes (1673), 72. Only this addition, which makes it transcend all Custards that art can make, though of natural ingredients; and that is, a fruity taste, which makes it strange and admirable.

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1817.  L. Hunt, Lett. to C. C. Clarke, in Gentl. Mag., May (1876), 600. All that is fine, floral, and fruity.

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1850.  Blackie, Æschylus, I. 81.

                    I delighted nothing less
Than doth the flowery calix, full surcharged
With fruity promise, when Jove’s welkin down
Distils the rainy blessing.

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1858.  Bushnell, Nat. & Supernat., iv. (1864), 91. The succulent peach gathers its fruity parts … about the nut or stone.

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a. 1861.  Mrs. Browning, Lett. R. H. Horne (1877), II. 131. I never saw a blooming girl of sixteen with a more fruity hopefulness in her countenance.

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  2.  Of wine: Having the taste of the grape.

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1851.  D. Jerrold, St. Giles, xxviii. 281. Philosophy with a glass of good fruity port—and yours is capital, one tastes blood and fibre in it.

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1855.  Athenæum, 13 Oct., 1194. Genuine Masdeu is a very fine fruity wine.

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  Hence Fruitiness.

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1869.  Contemp. Rev., XI. 357. Appreciating critics who write about its [a picture’s] fruitiness, and juiciness, and pulpiness.

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1895.  Daily News, 10 April, 4/7. The wines of the last vintage … are wanting in ripeness and fruitiness.

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