What does costard mean?
The costard is a large variety of cooking apple that was once among the most widely grown apples in England. Characterised by its considerable size and its distinctive ribbed or angular shape, it was a staple of medieval and early modern orchards and is often cited as one of the first named apple varieties cultivated in Britain. The word has largely fallen out of everyday use, surviving today mainly in discussions of heritage and heirloom fruit, though it retains a literary afterlife as a humorous archaic term for the human head, most famously borne by the clown Costard in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. For readers interested in the history of English horticulture or Elizabethan language, costard offers a compact example of how a common foodstuff can leave traces both in agricultural record and in comic literature.
A large variety of cooking apple with a ribbed shape, historically grown in England.
"The costard was once so common in English orchards that street sellers were nicknamed after it."
Now chiefly historical, used in discussions of heritage apple varieties.
(Archaic, humorous) The head.
"He took a knock on his costard and saw comets for the rest of the afternoon."
Obsolete except in literary or deliberately archaic contexts; familiar chiefly through Shakespeare's clown character Costard.
Regular plural; used when referring to multiple apples of this variety.
"The wicker basket brimmed with ripe costards gathered at harvest."
When Shakespeare wanted to call someone a blockhead, he reached for an apple: Falstaff is mocked as 'a whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch,' but Costard is literally the name of a fool in Love's Labour's Lost.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does costard come from?
The word derives from Middle French 'coste' meaning rib, ultimately from Latin 'costa', referring to the apple's characteristic ribbed shape; the same Latin root gives English words such as costal and intercostal, relating to the ribs. The name had entered English by the Middle Ages, when the costard was a well-known commercial apple variety. Its use as slang for the head arose by extension, the head being likened humorously to a large apple.
How costard is actually used
The word is now chiefly historical or of specialist interest, encountered in discussions of heritage fruit varieties or in Shakespearean contexts. The 'head' sense is archaic and survives mainly in literary quotation.
Easily confused with costard
Custard is a sweet sauce or dessert made with milk and eggs, whereas a costard is a large variety of apple; they sound similar but are unrelated in meaning.