fruitcake

See also: fruit-cake and fruit cake

English

Alternative forms

• fruit-cake, fruit cake

Etymology

From fruit +‎ cake, first use appears c. 1687. Sense of a crazy person, c. 1952 (predated by nutty as a fruitcake, c. 1911-12).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹuːt.keɪk/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

fruitcake (countable and uncountable, plural fruitcakes)

1. A cake containing dried fruits and, optionally, nuts, citrus peel and spice.
2. (colloquial, derogatory) A crazy or eccentric person.
   • 1952, Mickey Spillane, Kiss me Deadl, page 7:

     Easy, feller, easy. She's a fruitcake.

   • 1962, Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, New York: Signet, published 1963, page 205:

     One of the loafers kept calling down, "Hey you, Blondie, you like fruitcake kids like that?"

   • 2006 April 4, Ros Taylor, quoting David Cameron, “Cameron refuses to apologise to Ukip”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     "Ukip is sort of a bunch of … fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists mostly," Mr Cameron told LBC radio.

3. (US, slang, colloquial, derogatory, dated) A homosexual male.

Translations

cake

• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 乾果蛋糕／干果蛋糕 (gon¹ gwo² daan⁶ gou¹)

  Mandarin: 乾果蛋糕／干果蛋糕 (gānguǒ dàngāo)

• Dutch: fruitcake m
• Esperanto: fruktokuko, fruktkuko sg
• Finnish: hedelmäkakku (fi)
• French: cake (fr) m
• German: Früchtebrot (de) n, Früchtekuchen m
• Greek:

  Ancient: παλάθη f (paláthē)

• Irish: císte torthaí m
• Japanese: フルーツケーキ (furūtsukēki)
• Maori: keke huarākau
• Polish: keks (pl) m
• Russian: кекс (ru) m (keks), фрукто́вый пиро́г m (fruktóvyj piróg)
• Swedish: fruktkaka c
• Turkish: meyveli kek
• Yiddish: פֿרוכטקוכן (frukhtkukhn), ענגלישער קוכן (englisher kukhn)

crazy person

• Dutch: mafketel (nl) m, mafkees (nl) m, malloot (nl) m, dwaas (nl) m
• Esperanto: strangulo sg
• Finnish: kaheli (fi), kahjo (fi)
• German: Verrückter (de) m, Spinner (de) m
• Russian: псих (ru) m (psix)
• Swedish: toka (sv), tok (sv), galning (sv), knäppgök (sv)

homosexual

• Finnish: hintti (fi)
• German: Schwuchtel (de) f (derogatory)
• Portuguese: bicha (pt) m or f, boiola (pt) m, puto (pt) m, viado (pt) m
• Russian: го́мик (ru) m (gómik) (colloquial), пе́дик (ru) m (pédik) (offensive), пидора́с (ru) m (pidorás) (offensive), пи́дор (ru) m (pídor) (offensive)
• Swedish: bög (sv) c

See also

• mince pie

 

Further reading

• Jonathon Green (2024) “fruitcake n.¹”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Dutch

Etymology

Compound of fruit (“fruit”) +‎ cake (“cake”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfrœy̯t.keːk/
• Hyphenation: fruit‧cake

Noun

fruitcake m (plural fruitcakes, diminutive fruitcakeje n)

1. A fruitcake, cake flavored with fruit.

Hypernyms

• fruittaart