# Are acorns a fruit?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acorns-a-fruit/47362>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 27, 2000, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acorns-a-fruit/47362 "2000-12-27T09:41:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acorns-a-fruit/47362/1 "2000-12-27T09:41:49Z")

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In a discussion of obscure references in the game Baldur’s Gate 2, I pointed out that a character named Ilyich, who had some magic acorns, was a reference to The Nutcracker Suite, by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Someone said that acorns are not nuts, but fruit, and said it’s a reference to Lenin.

Are acorns not classified as nuts?

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**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acorns-a-fruit/47362/2 "2000-12-27T11:22:05Z")

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nut: A hard-shelled dry fruit or seed with a separable rind or shell and interior kernel; a dry indehiscent one-seeded fruit with a woody pericarp.

So there you go. They’re both 🙂 . Or to put it another way, all nuts( excluding the deranged and metallic varieties ) are fruits, but not all fruits are nuts.

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**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2000, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-acorns-a-fruit/47362/3 "2000-12-27T16:17:02Z")

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It appears to me as though you can call an acorn a “fruit” if you want to, but I think people will give you funny looks.  
[http://www.jbssinc.com/faqs.htm](http://www.jbssinc.com/faqs.htm)

> [@](#):
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> A botanical definition of a nut is a fruit with a hard, dry shell that needs to be cracked open to release the kernel. Nuts grow on trees.

[http://www.boston.com/globe/search/stories/health/how\_and\_why/112795.htm](http://www.boston.com/globe/search/stories/health/how_and_why/112795.htm)

> [@](#):
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> Well, technically, according to botanists, a nut is a type of fruit that consists of an edible hard seed covered with a dry, woody shell – a shell that doesn’t split open when it matures.

[http://www.healthcreation.net/biological-adapt.html](http://www.healthcreation.net/biological-adapt.html)

> [@](#):
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> All seed-bearing foods are botanically defined as “fruit”. This includes avocado, sweet pepper, cucumber, tomato, eggplant, even nuts and seeds.

[http://www.transbay.net/~teb/fruitarian/fruitarian-1.html](http://www.transbay.net/~teb/fruitarian/fruitarian-1.html)

> [@](#):
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> Here fruit has the common definition, i.e., the reproductive parts of a vine, bush, or tree, that includes a juicy pulp. The common definition is used here rather than the botanical, as the botanical definition is too broad, e.g., grain is considered a fruit under the botanical definition (but not the common definition).

[http://library.thinkquest.org/2899/currics/fabfilintr.html](http://library.thinkquest.org/2899/currics/fabfilintr.html)

> [@](#):
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> The botanical definition of fruit is more encompassing than the sense of fruit we develop at the grocery store. Fruit is “the mature seed vessel and its contents”. Therefore, the whole, five carpeled, dry, brown, “scissor” that develops from the filaree flower is a “fruit”.