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

But John Mulaney — who was a surprise reveal once the ceremony got underway — reset the tone for the season with a killer set that was a master class in how to poke fun at the year's films and the absurdity of the industry without reaching for the low-hanging fruit. —EW.com, 11 Jan. 2024

The initial phase of transitioning data from mainframes to the cloud for a hybrid environment primarily involved moving the more accessible, uncomplicated datasets—essentially, the low-hanging fruit of the digital realm. —Milan Shetti, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2024

Is this the low-hanging fruit of the whole fiscal stability debate? —Robert Goulder, Forbes, 28 Feb. 2024

The second reason why overseas mitigation efforts are more efficient is that a lot of the low-hanging fruit of carbon mitigation has been plucked in high-income countries but not in low- and middle-income countries. —Rachel Glennerster, Foreign Affairs, 14 Feb. 2024

Many companies and consumer advocates describe a federal privacy bill as vital, low-hanging fruit that would help resolve some of the most basic policy questions around AI, including how data can be used or shared for training AI models. —Brian Fung, CNN, 14 Feb. 2024

Firing back at Megan Thee Stallion, Minaj resorted to low-hanging fruit — including Megan’s romantic relationships, the 2019 death of her mother, her 2020 shooting by Tory Lanez and the media attention surrounding that highly public trial. —Alexandra Del Rosario, Los Angeles Times, 30 Jan. 2024

Drag queen backup singers would help, to dispense with the low-hanging fruit. —Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 21 Jan. 2024

But the low-hanging fruit of people publicizing themselves as rioters has now mostly been plucked. —IEEE Spectrum, 5 Jan. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1909, in the meaning defined above