low-hanging fruit

noun

low-hang·​ing fruit ˈlō-ˈhaŋ-iŋ- 

: the obvious or easy things that can be most readily done or dealt with in achieving success or making progress toward an objective

Maria and Victor have about three months' living expenses set aside. That's actually pretty good …. But I urged them to do better …. Looking at their monthly expenses, we found a few pieces of low-hanging fruit: Two hundred dollars a month on clothes? I don't think so. Another $155 for hair and manicures? Denied.

—Suze Orman

—often used with pick

As the writers and producers sat down in spring 2007 to draw the outlines of Season 7, they knew, Mr. Gordon said, that most of the low-hanging fruit in the action genre had already been picked.

—Edward Wyatt

When business types talk about picking low-hanging fruit, they don't mean, heaven forbid, doing actual physical labor. They mean finding easy solutions.

—Allan Sloan

Examples of low-hanging fruit in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Medicaid is not a low-hanging fruit for cutting costs. —Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun, 30 Apr. 2025

Such a move is essentially low-hanging fruit for a company. —Michael Wayland, CNBC, 23 Apr. 2025

Nevada also inexplicably omitted the low-hanging fruit of Rule 40.11, adopted by the CFTC in 2011. —Daniel Wallach, Forbes.com, 15 Apr. 2025

Pick the low-hanging fruit in your environment when Mercury retrograde coordinates with Pluto. —USA TODAY, 25 Mar. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1909, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for low-hanging fruit

• irresolute
• reconstitute
• absolute
• arrowroot
• attribute
• bitterroot
• constitute
• convolute
• destitute
• disrepute
• dissolute
• execute