grapefruit
grape·fruit/ˈɡɹeɪ̯pfɹut/noun
grapefruit is spelled G-R-A-P-E-F-R-U-I-T: 10 letters and 2 syllables (grape·fruit). It appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 23,253rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, grapefruit means “The tree of the species Citrus paradisi, a hybrid of Citrus maxima and sweet orange” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of grapefruit is grapefruits.
How many letters and syllables are in grapefruit?
| Letters | 10: G-R-A-P-E-F-R-U-I-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: grape·fruit |
| In writing | 1.5 times per million words; the 23,253rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is grapefruit?
Grapefruit appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 23,253rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce grapefruit?
- UK /ˈɡɹeɪ̯pfɹuːt/
- British /ˈɡɹɛjpfɹʉwt/
- US /ˈɡɹeɪ̯pfɹut/
Grapefruit has 2 syllables, split grape·fruit in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-grapefruit.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of grapefruit
- grapefruits plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does grapefruit mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The tree of the species Citrus paradisi, a hybrid of Citrus maxima and sweet orange.
- 2
The large spherical tart fruit produced by this tree.
- 3
vulgarLarge breasts; by extension, a woman with large breasts.
Cupping her grapefruits in her hands, she closed her eyes and imagined her date grasping them, exploring their size, weight, and firmness.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Grapefruit in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | pamplemoussier , pamplemousse, pomélo, chadègue, chadigue |
| Portuguese | toranjeira , toranja, toronja |
| Spanish | toronjo , toronja, pomelo |
| German | Grapefruit, Pampelmuse |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does grapefruit come from?
Widely assumed to be a marketing term from grape + fruit, an allusion to the supposed grapelike clusters of fruit on the tree, early 19th c. Ciardi proposes another theory: one of the pomelo's botanical names is Citrus grandis, meaning “great citrus [fruit]”, due to the size of its fruit. A new pomelo variety might first have been called a GRAYT-froot (see greatfruit), and through the process of assimilation, the word came to be pronounced GRAYP-froot.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).