Learn English – Origin of “Comparing apples and oranges”

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What is the origin of the idiom "comparing apples and oranges," as in,

You can't compare those things! That's like comparing apples and oranges.

EDIT: I can find a book from 1889 making the comparison.

Update: 30/03/2017
It appears that the link cited above is broken.

Best Answer

The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms (1997) offers this derivation of "apples and oranges":

This metaphor for dissimilarity began as apples and oysters, which appeared in John Ray's proverb collection of 1670. It is nearly always accompanied by a warning that on cannot compare such different categories.

In Ray's book, it appears in the section called "Proverbial Similes" and consists of the simple phrase "As like as an apple to an oyster."

The Wordsworth Dictionary of Proverbs (2006) offers this series of early quotations:

1532: More, Works, 724 (1557), No more lyke then an apple to an oyster. 1565: Calfhill, Answer to Martiall, 99 (P.S.), Which have learned to make quidlibet ex quodlibet: an apple of an oyster. 1594: Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, IV ii [Tranio: He is my father, sir, and sooth to say, In count'nance somewhat doth resemble you. Biondello: (aside) As much as an apple doth an oyster, and all one.] 1667: L'Estrange, Quevedo's Visions, 34 (1904), You are no more like ... than an apple's like an oyster.

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