cherry [ME] Cherry comes from Old French cherise, and at first cheris(e) was the English word for the fruit too. When people heard this word they seem to have thought that it must be a plural and rapidly decided that the word for one of these fruit was cherry. *Pea is another example of the same process. The cherry is one of the few fruits native to Britain, and although delicious it has a short fruiting season. For these reasons it represents something pleasant or desirable in a number of common expressions. To have two bites (or a second bite) at the cherry [M17th] is to have more than one attempt or chance to do something. An extremely pleasant or enjoyable experience can be described as a bowl of cherries [E20th]. Cherry tomato is mid 19th century.