1. a small, soft round stone fruit that is typically bright or dark red: "a bowl of cherries"
2. the tree that bears the cherry.
▪ the wood of the cherry tree.
▪ used in names of unrelated plants with fruits similar to those of the cherry tree, e.g. cornelian cherry.
3. a bright deep red colour: "her mouth was a bright cherry red"
4. one's virginity:informal"only 3 per cent of the students lost their cherry at college"
Word OriginMiddle English: from Old Northern French cherise, from medieval Latin ceresia, based on Greek kerasos ‘cherry tree, cherry’. The final -s was lost because cherise was interpreted as plural (compare with caper2 and pea).
