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

What are some easily identifiable problems whose solutions can represent low-hanging fruit, and what AI solutions can address them quickly? —Tim Houlne, Forbes.com, 28 Apr. 2025

But even those tax breaks, which were thought to be low-hanging fruit, have supporters in the GOP. —Alexander Bolton, The Hill, 21 Apr. 2025

According to the group’s leadership, who guided members through meetings with lawmakers on The Hill, there’s low-hanging fruit to be plucked, namely in the form of government contracts and funding for military applications. —Kate Nishimura, Sourcing Journal, 31 Mar. 2025

There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit in every organization. —Julia Dhar, Forbes.com, 16 Apr. 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