Cherry

Cherry (pronounced cher-ee)

(1) The fruit of any of various trees belonging to the genus Prunus, of the rose family, consisting of a pulpy, globular drupe enclosing a one-seeded smooth stone.

(2) The tree bearing such a fruit.

(3) The wood of such a tree.

(4) Used loosely, any of various fruits or plants resembling the cherry.

(5) A bright red color; cerise (often termed cherry red).

(6) In vulgar slang (1) the hymen & (2) a female state of virginity (as in “to pop her cherry”).

(7) Something new, unused or in immaculate condition.

(8) A novice; a neophyte.

(9) In underworld slang, a first offender.

(10) In ten-pin bowling, the striking down of only the forward pin or pins in attempting to make a spare.

(11) Of food and beverages, made with or containing cherries or cherry-like flavoring (cherry pie, cherry soda, cherry bomb, cherry cola, cherry brandy et al).

(12) Of furniture, timberwork etc, items made of or covered or decorated with a veneer of wood from the cherry tree.

(13) In graph theory, a sub-tree consisting of a node with exactly two leaves.

(14) In the slang of cricket, the ball (the traditional red variety used in first-class & test matches).

(15) In slang, the traditionally rounded, flashing red lights used on police cars, ambulances, fire engines etc.

(16) In slang, the burning tip of a cigarette (no rare).

1300–1350: From the Middle English chery, cherie, chirie & cheri, a back formation from the from Anglo-Norman cherise (a variant of chirie and mistakenly thought to be plural), from the Late Latin ceresium & cerasium, from the Latin cerasum, from the Ancient Greek κεράσιον (kerásion) (cherry fruit), from κερασός (kerasós) (bird; cherry), and perhaps ultimately of Anatolian origin (etymologists citing the intervocalic σ as a hint of a pre-Greek origin for the word and noting also that “…as the improved cherry came from the Pontos area... the name is probably Anatolian as well”.  The word cherry originates in the northern French dialect word cherise (a variant of the standard modern French cerise), which was adopted into English after the Norman Conquest of 1066.  Because it ended in an “s”, it was taken to be a plural form and so, as a back formation, the “singular” cherry was coined.  In Old English there had been ċiris & ċirse (cherry), from a West Germanic borrowing of the Vulgar Latin word (and cognate with German Kirsch which did survive), but it went extinct after the Norman invasion, supplanted by the French word.  Cherry is a noun & adjective and cherrier & cherriest are adjectives; the noun plural is cherries.

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (Uhlenhaut) coupé.  This is "red" with cherry red trim.

The factory produced only two gullwing versions of the 300 SLR (technically the W196S) and neither were ever used in competition because of the race for which they were designed (the Carrera Panamericana) was cancelled in the moral panic which followed the 1955 Le Mans disaster and in the wake of that, Mercedes-Benz also withdrew from top-flight motorsport, not returning for decades.  The two were nicknamed “red” and “blue”, an allusion to the cherry red and Prussian blue interiors (the factory insists the colors are just “red” & “blue” but “cherry” seems right and few can resist "Prussian", even if the things were built in the south).  In 2022, the “cherry red” 300 SLR coupé was sold at private auction for €135 million (US$143 million), setting the mark as the most expensive car ever.

Always choose a dark cherry.

The color cherry red is not exactly defined and even a little misleading because it’s applied usually to bright shades which others might describe as blood red (also misleading) cardinal, carmine, carnation, cerise, crimson, fire engine red, flame, flamingo, fuchsia, geranium, pillar-box red, scarlet or other imaginative forms.  It’s misleading because the fruit comes in many shades of red from bright to a shade so dark they’re actually called “black cherries”.  It’s probably only on color charts the distinction matters but what one manufacturer calls “cherry red” might be very different from the products of others.  In cricket, some get it.  Prior to the 1970s, all cricket balls were red (there are now white ones & pink ones)so the slang “cherry” was common but the New Zealand fast bowler Sir Richard Hadlee (b 1951) wasn’t content with any ball, insisting that one of the secrets to his success was when offered a choice of cherries by the umpire was not to be bothered by details like the seam (which interested so may bowlers) but to always pick “a good dark one”.  He said the darker “cherries” could be made to move much more through the air.

Lindsay Lohan in cherry-themed outfit in Get a Clue (2002).

The meaning “maidenhead, virginity” was originally US slang and in use by 1928 but some doubt the story that the source was the supposed resemblance to the hymen and suggest it was an allusion to the long-established use of cherries as a symbol of the fleeting quality of life's pleasures (and “cherry” was English underworld slang for “lovely young girl”, documents since at least 1899.  Forms of alcohol include cherry brandy and the cherry-bounce, the popular name of a cordial made from fermented cherries and known in one form or another since the 1690s.  Forms of food include just about anything possible, most famously including cherry strudel, cherry pie, cherry duck etc.  In idiomatic use, there’s “bite of the cherry” (a chance; an attempt at something), “life isn’t a bowl of cherries” (one must be realistic about the vicissitudes one will encounter in life), the cherry nose (the red noses of those too fond of strong drink), cherry on the cake (the same meaning as “icing on the cake”, (something that intensifies the appreciation of something already good), cherry-popping (to deflower a virgin), “cherry-pop” (a sweet, red-colored cordial) and to “cherry pick”(selfishly to select only the very best of something), a pejorative figurative sense dating from 1959 and based on a machine: the literal “cherry-picker” the name given to crane with a bucket for raising and lowering persons (for purposes such as pick cherries from a tree) although earlier it had been used in railroad maintenance.