Final answer:
In programming, 'fruit' is a variable, while 'apple' could be either a string or another variable, depending on whether it is enclosed in quotation marks or not.
Step-by-step explanation:
If we assign the value of 'apple' to the variable 'fruit' using fruit = apple, then 'fruit' is a variable. A variable in programming is a storage location paired with an associated symbolic name, which contains some known or unknown quantity of information referred to as a value. In this case, 'apple' could be a value assigned to the variable 'fruit', but it seems like it is intended to be a string. However, without quotation marks, 'apple' would be interpreted as another variable in most programming languages. If 'apple' should represent the word itself, it must be presented as '"apple"' to be properly recognized as a string, otherwise it will be identified as a variable.