# Cherries and sex.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cherries-and-sex/366066>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 26, 2006, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cherries-and-sex/366066 "2006-07-26T09:56:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Foldup\_Rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df788c/32.png) [@Foldup\_Rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foldup_Rabbit)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2006, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cherries-and-sex/366066/1 "2006-07-26T09:56:30Z")

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My boyfriend and I were pitting cherries for some glaze and I wondered…

How did cherries become associated with hymens and the breaking of?

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**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2006, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cherries-and-sex/366066/2 "2006-07-26T12:30:30Z")

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The OED doesn’t pinpoint it, but the earliest cite of this use is from a dictionary that says “cherry” is slang for “young girl.”

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> [1889 BARRÈRE & LELAND Dict. Slang I. 241/1 Cherry (thieves), a young girl. 1926 W. FAULKNER Soldiers’ Pay viii. 288 ‘If that’s the only way you got to get a wife you’d better pick out another one’… ‘Atalanta’, she suggested… ‘Try an apple next time’… ‘Or a cherry’..said Jones viciously.] 928 J. B. WHARTON Squad iv. 132, I told him he wuz too young to lose his cherry.

The gap between the first two cites might indicate the change of meaning.

As for the origin of the original definition, it may come from an English proverb quoted in the OED:

> [@](#):
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> 1869 in Hazlitt Eng. Prov. 39 A woman and a cherry are painted for their own harm.

The connection between this and “cherry”=“young girl” seems a strong possibility.