Example sentences
duō多chī吃shuǐ水guǒ果。
Eat more fruit.
shuǐ水guǒ果xīn新xiān鲜ma吗？
Is the fruit fresh?
About this word
水 is "water" and 果 is "fruit, nut". So 水果 is "water fruit", the juicy fresh kind. Chinese splits 果 into the wet kind (水果, fruit eaten raw) and the dry kind (干果, nuts and dried fruit), so a walnut is never a 水果. 果 on its own also means "result", which is why 结果 can mean "to bear fruit" or "as a result". The everyday fruits are all 水果: 苹果, 香蕉, 西瓜.
The story behind the character
水
A winding river in the middle, a few splashes at the sides. The earliest 水 looks exactly like a stream. Xu Shen took a different angle: 水, 准也: "water is level," the root of the word for "level" itself.
果
田 on top (really the shape of a fruit) over 木 (tree). Fruit on a tree. Xu Shen wrote 果, 木实也: "the fruit of the tree." What grows on a tree is fruit. Plain enough to need no comment.