apple

English apple comes from Middle English appel, from Old English æppel, from Proto-West Germanic *applu, from Proto-Germanic *aplaz, tracing back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂ébōl. Beyond that point, its origin is genuinely uncertain — it may be a borrowing from a non-Indo-European language, though scholars have long debated possible links to similar words in Celtic, Baltic, and Slavic tongues.

In Old English, æppel meant not just the fruit we know but 'any type of fruit' generally, and even figuratively an eyeball or sphere. The forbidden fruit in Eden isn't actually named in Genesis — it likely became linked to the apple because Latin mālum (apple) resembled malum (evil).

It's cognate with German Apfel, Dutch appel, Swedish äpple, and Old Norse epli — all descending from the same Germanic root, showing how widely this word spread across northern Europe.