• fruition •
Pronunciation: fru-i-shên • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun, mass
Meaning: 1. Successful completion, fulfillment, materialization, intended results. 2. Enjoyment of something possessed. 3. The action of bearing fruit.
Notes: Today's word and fruit are other examples of the English habit of helping itself to Old French words. This one is a lexical orphan with no close lexical family. The third sense above resulted from the confusion of fruit with fruition.
In Play: Big things may (or may not) come to fruition: "The hopes of complete peace on Earth may never come to fruition." But small things may do the same thing: "A preteen child cleaning his or her room is the fruition of every mother's dream."
Word History: Today's Good Word seems related to fruit, but that word is fruit fallen farther from its lexical tree. It was nicked from Old French, where it meant "act of enjoyment", passed down from Latin fruitio(n) "enjoyment", the action noun of the verb fruor "to enjoy". Latin created this word from PIE bhrug- "to enjoy", source also of Latin frux, frugis "fruit", German brauchen "to need" and gebrauchen "to use", Albanian frutë "fruit", and Old English brucan "to need". Latin frux, frugis became fructa by Late Latin, which went on to become frutta in Italian, fructe in Romanian, fruta in Portuguese and Spanish, and fruit in French, whence the English word was borrowed. (Now a few words of gratitude to Jeremy Busch, Agora manager and GW editor, for bringing today's deceptive Good Word to our attention.)
