APPLE

Where it comes from

The noun is derived from Middle English appel (“Malus domestica fruit or tree, apple; any type of fruit, nut, or tuber; tree bearing fruit; (figurative) ball, sphere; (Christianity) forbidden fruit in Eden”), from Old English æppel (“apple; any type of fruit; (figurative) ball, sphere; eyeball”), from Proto-West Germanic *applu (“apple; any type of fruit”), from Proto-Germanic *aplaz (“apple; any type of fruit”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ébōl, *h₂ébl̥ (“apple”). As regards noun sense 1.4 (“forbidden fruit”), the type of fruit eaten by Adam and Eve is not identified in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. It may have come to be identified with the apple because of the similarity between Latin mālum (“apple”) and malum (“evil; misery, torment; wrongdoing”). The inheritance from Germanic is clear, but the etymology of the word beyond that point is uncertain and disputed. The word may show a borrowing from a non-Indo-European language, or the forms in Germanic, Celtic, Baltic, and Slavonic may all be developed from a common Indo-European base—although none of the attempts to identify cognates in other branches of Indo-European have yet met with general acceptance. In Old English, the word originally followed the strong masculine u-stem declension, but even in early texts it shows a shift toward the more common a-stem declension (compare the nominative plural æppla beside the rare æpplas; see further A. Campbell Old Eng. Gram. (1959) §613). A possible weak by-form is also suggested by the genitive plural æpplena (instead of the expected æppla) in an isolated attestation from the first half of the 11th century. Among the variant forms, the β forms show metanalysis (see Metanalysis). The verb is derived from the noun. Cognate with: Possibly also Latin Abella (town in Campania; compare Virgil Aeneid 7.740 maliferae... moenia Abellae 'the walls of apple-bearing Abella').

Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).

APPLE in OUTLIER

Players have found it on 2 boards so far.

It first turned up on Day 110, 7 September 2026. The most recent board was Day 117, 14 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 2 days.

First found by a player on Day 110, 7 September 2026.

Built from these letters

APPLE starts with A and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read AELPP - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. P appears more than once, including a double letter.

Same letters, different word

2 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.

Words that start APPLE

Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.

Also seen on Day 110