The tree of this fruit inspired the blog itself. It’s the first fruit to flower in our garden. Plums have failed, apples have been plagued by codling moth, cherries have fallen victim to fruit flies but the apricot has soldiered on, autofertile, and provided us with delicious fruit without fuss.

apricot

|ˈeɪprɪkɒt|

(n.)

roundish, orange-colored, plum-like fruit, 1550s, abrecock, from Catalan abercoc, related to Portuguese albricoque, from Arabic al-birquq, through Byzantine Greek berikokkia which is probably from Latin (malum) praecoquum "early-ripening (fruit)". Form assimilated to French abricot.

Latin praecoquis early-ripe, can probably be attributed to the fact that the fruit was considered a variety of peach that ripened sooner than other peaches .... [Barnhart]

Native to the Himalayas, it was introduced in England in 1524. The older Latin name for it was prunum Armeniacum or malum Armeniacum, in reference to supposed origin in Armenia. As a color name, by 1906.