Adam's apple

plural Adam's apples

1. anatomyThe lump in the throat, usually more noticeable in men than in women; the laryngeal prominence.

   And our young – well, youngish, since the male cast is now 90% Adam’s apple – heroes have to stop him.

   2025 December 26, Stuart Heritage, “Stranger Things season five vol 2 review – the fact that this isn’t unbearable is a miracle”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   4 more examples

   That same bunch which is seen on the foreside of the Neck, is called Adams Apple, because the common people have a beliefe, that by the judgement of God, a part of that fatal Apple, abode sticking in Adams Throat, and is so communicated to his posterity

   1662 [1651], Nicholas Culpeper, Abdiah Cole, transl., Bartholinus Anatomy, London: Peter Cole, translation of Protuberantia illa in collo anterius conspicua, dicitur Pomum Adami; [quia vulgo persuasum in Adami faucibus pomi fatalis partem ex pœna Divina remansisse, & ad posteros translatam] by Thomas Bartholin, page 123

   He was seated some way down a table at right angles to the one at which I sat, a man of mean appearance with a greyish complexion, thin, with a square nose, a heavy wiry moustache and a big Adam's apple sticking out between the wings of his collar.

   1911, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, The New Machiavelli, London: John Lane; The Bodley Head […], →OCLC

   The thickness of his wrist and the greatness of his fingers made authentic the mighty frame of him hidden under loose dungaree pants and cotton shirt, buttonless, open from midriff to Adam’s apple, exposing a chest matted with a thatch of hair as white as that of his head and face.

   1919 September, Jack London, “The Bones of Kahelili”, in On the Makaloa Mat, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, pages 42–43

   A barber shop and pool room. A man in shirt sleeves, presumably Del Snafflin the proprietor, shaving a man who had a large Adam's apple.

   1920, Sinclair Lewis, Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, →OCLC

   Synonyms: Adam's morsel, apple, apple of Adam, laryngeal prominence, goozle

2. Any member of the species Tabernaemontana divaricata of fragrant houseplants, native to southeast Asia.

   Synonyms: crape jasmine, pinwheel flower, Nero's crown, butterfly gardenia, carnation of India, East Indian rosebay, Tabernaemontana coronaria, coffee rose

3. Any of hybrid species Musa × paradisiaca, of cultivated bananas.
4. A citron (Citrus limetta, syn. of Citrus medica).

   1 more example

   The fourth [name of the citron] is named of diuers Pomum Assyrium, or Citron of Assyria, and may be Englished Adams apple, after the Italian name, and among the vulgar sort of Italians Lomie, of whom it is also called Pomum Adami, or Adams apple, and that came by the opinion of the commom rude people, who thinke it to be the same Apple, of which Adam did eate in Paradise when he transgressed Gods commandement

   1597, John Gerarde, The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes, London: John Norton, page 1281