English Dictionary

apple of Sodom

/ˈæp(ə)l əv ˈsɒdəm/

noun

(medieval mythology) A gigantic tree supposed to have grown on the site of the destroyed cities Sodom and Gomorrah (see Genesis 18–19 in the Bible), the apples of which would turn to ash and smoke once picked.

The apple of Sodom is a poisonous fruit that resembles a real apple but is filled with dust and ashes.

意味（1）

(medieval mythology) A gigantic tree supposed to have grown on the site of the destroyed cities Sodom and Gomorrah (see Genesis 18–19 in the Bible), the apples of which would turn to ash and smoke once picked.

We searched for the famous apple of Sodom, and found two kinds of fruit, either of which, with the help of a little poetic imagination, might pass for the fruit in question. […] The other fruit, which we observed, and which seems to me more like the apple in question, grows around Jericho. It looks very inviting, but its taste is extremely bitter and disagreeable. One of the Arabs told me it was poisonous. [François-René de] Chateaubriand, who thought this the apple of Sodom, says, When dried it yields a blackish seed, which may be compared to ashes, and which in taste resembles bitter pepper. Whether either of these is the apple of Sodom, or whether there is any such apple, even after all that Josephus and Tacitus and others have said about it, I will not attempt to decide.

意味（2）

(medieval mythology) The fruit of the mythical tree.

Men have tasted of the apples of Sodom, and they have found bitter ashes under an inviting and luscious surface.

意味（3）

The mudar (Calotropis procera), a flowering plant, found from northern Africa to southeast Asia, which bears poisonous fruit.

意味（4）

The bitter apple, colocynth, etc. (Citrullus colocynthis), a desert plant native to Asia and the Mediterranean Basin with extremely bitter flesh.

意味（5）

A number of plants of the genus Solanum, the nightshades.