Q::What phrase containing a fruit refers to someone who is your source of pride, the object of your love and affection.
A::APPLE OF YOUR EYE
__________
First appeared in Old English in work attributed to King Aelfred (the Great) of Wessex, AD 885, called Gregory's Pastoral Care: "The pupils of the bleared eyes are sound, but the eyelashes become bushy, being often dried because of the frequent flow of tears, until the sharpness of the pupil is dulled."
Shakespeare also used it in the 1590s when he wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Flower of this purple dye, / Hit with Cupid's archery, / Sink in apple of his eye."
It also appears in the King James Bible Translation from 1611: Deuteronomy 32:10, Psalms 17:8, Proverbs 7:2, Lamentations 2:18, Zechariah 2:8.
The original Hebrew for this idiom, in all but Zechariah 2:8, was 'iyshown 'ayin and can be literally translated as "Little Man of the Eye." This is a reference to the tiny reflection of yourself that you can see in other people's pupils.
This Hebrew idiom is surprisingly close to the Latin version, pupilla, which means a little doll, and is a diminutive form of pupus, boy, or pupa, girl (the source also for our other sense of pupil to mean a schoolchild.) It was applied to the dark central portion of the eye within the iris because of the tiny image of oneself, like a puppet or marionette, that one can see when looking into another person's eye.
In Zechariah 2:8, the Hebrew phrase used is bava 'ayin. The meaning of bava is disputed. It may mean "apple"; and if so, the phrase used in Zechariah 2:8 literally refers to the "apple of the eye." However, it appears that most Hebrew scholars think this Hebrew phrase communicated the meaning conveyed by the English word, "eyeball."
The earliest recorded use in Modern English is in Sir Walter Scott's Old Mortality, 1816: "Poor Richard was to me as an eldest son, the apple of my eye." (Condensed from Wikipedia)
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