apricot

Etymology

Alteration of apricock (with influence from French abricot), itself an alteration of abrecock (with influence from Latin apricum (“sunny place”)), from dialectal Catalan abrecoc, abricoc, variants of standard albercoc, from Arabic الْبَرْقُوق (al-barqūq, “plums”), from Byzantine Greek βερικοκκία (berikokkía, “apricot tree”), from Ancient Greek πραικόκιον (praikókion), from Late Latin (persica) praecocia (literally “(peaches) which ripen early”), (mālum) praecoquum (literally “(apple) which ripens early”).

noun

1. A round sweet and juicy stone fruit, resembling peach or plum in taste, with a yellow-orange flesh, lightly fuzzy skin and a large seed inside.
   pickled apricots
2. The apricot tree, Prunus armeniaca
3. (color) A pale yellow-orange colour, like that of an apricot fruit.
   apricot:
4. A dog with an orange-coloured coat.
5. (sniper slang) The junction of the brain and brain stem on a target, used as an aiming point to ensure a one-shot kill.
   Seven hundred and seventy-eight yards, though I didn't know the exact measurement at the time, plus the fact that the bullet ripped through the victim's apricot tipped me to the fact that we were probably dealing with an experienced sniper. 2011, Jordan Gray, Unearthed, Harlequin, page 41
   I'd aim right for the apricot. The medulla. You'd die instantly. 2012, Eric Puchner, “Beautiful Monsters”, in Tom Perrotta, editor, The Best American Short Stories 2012, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, page 198
   “See the nose?” Slater asked. He’d drawn a face on the watermelon with a Sharpie. “Aim right below it, at the philtrum. That way, the bullet's gonna go straight through and hit the apricot. Carmen told you about the apricot?” In my first lesson. The apricot was the sniper's nickname for the medulla oblongata, the cone-shaped mass of neurons that connected the brain to the spinal cord. 2020, Elise Noble, When the Shadows Fall, Undercover Publishing Limited
6. (slang, Australia, dated, usually in the plural) A testicle.

adj

1. Of a pale yellowish-orange colour, like that of an apricot.