low hanging fruit

low hanging fruit

Meaning

• a goal that can be easily reached
• something that is easy to take advantage of
• a company that would be easy to buy up as an investment opportunity

Example Sentences

1. There are a lot of things that need to be completed for our project. I would suggest that we start with the low hanging fruit.
2. For the new weight loss drug, the university girls in town were low hanging fruit. They are always looking for ways to lose weight.
3. That company is low hanging fruit. They are in financial difficulty.

Origin

Phrases like “fruit low hung” and “fruit hanging low” have been used since the 1600s. The phrase “low hanging fruit” first appeared in print in 1968. It was used in an article in The Guardian newspaper.

“His work is so appealing to me that I feel almost bashful praising it… He is gentle and stoic and simple, his rare images are picked aptly, easily, like low-hanging fruit, and though he appears to move short distances slowly he really moves far and fast.”

Fruit that hang at the bottom of the tree are easy to reach. This makes it an easy task to complete and is usually the one that you attempt first. You would then move on to more difficult tasks.