fruit and flowers

English

Etymology

Such illicit purchases might be explained away in a budget as spending on fruit and flowers.

Noun

fruit and flowers pl (plural only)

(euphemistic, jargon, especially in the music business) Illicit purchased items such as recreational drugs or prostitutes.
- 2009 May 23, Dylan Jones, “Who's pinched all the paper clips?”, in Daily Mail‎^[1]:
  Most journalists I know are actually rather scrupulous with their expenses – although I do know of one who tried to pass off one of their children's birthday parties as a networking opportunity (hats off!). However, I've been thinking of some of the things I might have been able to claim myself: getting my driving gloves dry-cleaned, for instance, medicinal single malts, ‘back rubs’ in foreign hotels, or that great music-industry euphemism, ‘fruit and flowers’.
- 2010 September 28, Cahal Milmo, “A bad buy – with a little help from his friends?”, in The Independent‎^[2]:
  Mr Hands was criticised for his robust managerial style, forcing through redundancies and highlighting excessive costs such as the £200,000 spent annually on "fruit and flowers" and £20,000 a month on candles.
- 2019 April 3, Chris Cooke, “Streaming boom and emerging markets drive fourth year of growth for global recorded music industry”, in Complete Music Update‎^[3], archived from the original on 14 August 2020:
  Don’t be thinking the record companies are getting all complacent and haemorrhaging all of that new cash on exorbitant executive bonuses, plush new offices and an endless supply of fruit and flowers though. Oh no. They are investing.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:fruit and flowers.
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see fruit,‎ flower.

Usage notes

Used in accounting documents, contract riders, or other business records in order to record money spent on illicit materials without explicitly naming them.

Synonyms

See Thesaurus:recreational drug