Is there a familial term for apples and pears?

Yes, they are pomes

a fruit consisting of a fleshy enlarged receptacle and a tough central core containing the seeds, e.g., an apple or pear.

Pome:Google dictionary.


The corresponding expression to citrus fruit is pomaceous fruit(s):

Thus, the apple, crab, pear, quince, medlar, and possibly others are designated as “pomaceous" fruits, each having certain specific (as contrasted with general) natural characters in common. — US Dept. of Agriculture, Agriculture Yearbook, 1926.

I could not use a Google Book NGram to check for frequency because of the massive false hits for pome, but I think I’ve seen the adjective + fruit more often than the noun pome, in contrast to drupe, which appears to be more frequent than the adjective drupaceous.


In the world of horticulture and pomology (the study of fruit), the term "pome fruit" to describe this group is common everyday language in 2019. Citrus and "stone fruit" (plums, peaches and cherries) are two other big categories of tree fruit.