Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A heavy spiced cake containing nuts and candied or dried fruits.
  • noun Slang A crazy or an eccentric person.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A cake containing dried fruits and, optionally, nuts, citrus peel and spice.
  • noun colloquial, derogatory A crazy or eccentric person.
  • noun US, slang, colloquial, derogatory, dated A male homosexual.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a whimsically eccentric person
  • noun a rich cake containing dried fruit and nuts and citrus peel and so on

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From fruit +‎ cake, 1854. Sense of crazy person 1952 (predated by nutty as a fruitcake, 1914).

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Examples

Comments

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  • "The longer you keep it, the better it gets." Ahhh. So that's the trick. You never actually eat it, THEN it's delicious!

    October 8, 2008

  • I can do that.

    October 8, 2008

  • It's more complicated than that. At least in the frindley household, you have to take it down off the top of the pantry cupboard every three months or so and dowse it in brandy. Then wrap it back up in the heavy brown-paper wrapping and return it to the top of the cupboard. Then after about 12 to 18 months of that you have the most wonderful, wonderful creation, ready to be covered in a thin layer of marzipan, followed by two layers of delicately tinted fondant icing, and finally decorated with elegant swirling curlicues of royal icing in a slightly paler shade. Modelled fondant flowers are optional. Personally, I think my best cake of all was the one surmounted by a fondant muddleheaded wombat, made for my sister's birthday.

    October 8, 2008