forbidden fruit
Illicit pleasure.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“He knew the forbidden fruit was not for him.”
“She felt a thrill whenever she checked her ex's social media, treating the information like forbidden fruit.”
“The young scholar found the restricted archives to be forbidden fruit, yet the temptation to uncover the hidden history proved impossible to resist.”
The phrase comes from the Eden narrative in Genesis 2-3. God places the man and woman in the garden and permits them everything except the fruit of one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A serpent persuades them to eat it anyway, and the eating brings shame, exile, and the loss of the garden. It is worth noting that Genesis never actually names the fruit an apple; that detail is a later European accretion, helped along by the Latin pun between malum (evil) and malus (apple). The text itself says only that the fruit was forbidden.
In its original setting the point is not the fruit but the prohibition: the one thing withheld becomes the one thing desired. That is the seed of the modern meaning. By the time the phrase settled into English it had loosened from the theology entirely.
Today forbidden fruit names anything made more tempting precisely because it is off-limits, from a banned book to an illicit romance. The pull is in the ban, not the object.
- 01
bear fruit
To produce good results; to yield benefits; to succeed.
- 02
fruit of one's loins
One's child or, collectively, one's children or descendants.
- 03
fruit of the poisonous tree
Evidence that has been obtained as the result of an illegal act on the part of law enforcement personnel (such as an unlawful warrantless search, or continued questioning of a witness who has invoked the right of counsel), and which is therefore excluded from being admitted as evidence in a trial.
- 04
fruit of the union
A child, especially from a marriage or similar union.
- 05
fruit up
To grope a young boy.
- 06
God forbid
indicating that the occurrence of something is very undesirable
- 07
heaven forbid
May heaven forbid it: expresses the desire that something does not happen.
- 08
low-hanging fruit
Easily obtained gains; what can be obtained by readily available means.
Genesis 1–4: the making of the world, Eden, and the first family.
- 01
my brother's keeper (idiom)
Responsible for the welfare of another person — most often used when denying that responsibility.
- 02
the mark of Cain (idiom)
A visible stigma that marks someone out as guilty or disgraced.
- 03
let there be light (idiom)
A phrase marking the start of something new, or a moment of sudden clarity.
- 04
by the sweat of your brow (idiom)
Through hard physical labour and personal effort.
- 05
fig-leaf (word)
A small or flimsy thing used to hide something embarrassing or shameful.
Last updated August 10, 2026