Pine cones were called 'pine apples.' That's where the fruit got its name!

Have you ever noticed how pine cones and pineapples kind of look alike? It's true. The tapered oval shape. The layered grooves. The word "pineapple" was first coined in 1398 and was used to describe pine cones not the sweet tropical fruit that we know today.

European explorers started referring to the tasty yellow fruit as "pineapples" because they believed it resembled what they knew as "pineapples" but were really pine cones. The first recorded use of the term being used this way was in 1664.

However, the English language couldn't have the same word referring to two different things (that never happens) so the tree "pineapple" was renamed the "pine cone" around 1695.

(Source)