fruit of the union
- noun
:
fruto de la unión
- Their daughter is the fruit of the union between two passionate artists.
Examples
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After years of partnership, they celebrated the fruit of the union in the form of their three happy children.
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The fruit of the union of their love was a beautiful family.
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This attitude is the fruit of the union of David Petraeus' COIN strategy with the Arab Spring.
Blog text (10)
Synonyms
The children and grandchildren of a person
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase uses 'fruit' in its metaphorical sense of 'result' combined with 'union' to mean offspring or the outcome of a relationship, so a learner who knows 'fruit' as 'result' and 'union' could plausibly infer the meaning. However this is a figurative, somewhat formal phrasing and relies on a metaphorical mapping (fruit → offspring) rather than fully literal composition, so it may not be immediately obvious to all B1 learners without exposure.
Etymology
Fruit of the union comes from older sayings where fruit meant the result of something and union meant a joining like marriage. So the picture is of a marriage producing fruit, which is why it means 'a child' or the outcome of the partnership.
