prune
/pɹun/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.96 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To become wrinkled like a dried plum, as the fingers and toes do when kept submerged in water.
Informal; Intransitive verb
verb
To remove excess material from a tree or shrub; to trim, especially to make more healthy or productive.
Transitive verb
verb
To remove (something unnecessary) for the sake of cutting down or shortening that which it was previously part of.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "We are not free when we are in the grip of the false conditioning that decrees that we need sex. We are not free if we believe the culture's ominous warnings that we will become "horny" (what a callous, offensive word) and frustrated and neurotic and finally shrivel up into prunes and have to abandon hope of being good, creative, effective people."
- "I hardly left that spot in my pool that month even when my fingers pruned and chlorine dried out my skin."
- "A good grape grower will prune the vines once a year."
- "But poore old man, thou prun'ſt a rotten tree, / That cannot ſo much as a bloſſome yeelde"
- "Our delightful task / To prune these growing plants, and tend these flowers."
- "to prune a budget, or an essay"
Etymology
From Middle English prune, from Old French prune, from Vulgar Latin *prūna, feminine singular formed from the neutral plural of Latin prūnum, from Ancient Greek προῦνον (proûnon), variant of προῦμνον (proûmnon, “plum”), a loanword from a language of Asia Minor. Doublet of plum.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: prune, *prūna, prūnum, προῦνον, prunen, proignier
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /pɹun/
- British English: /pɹuːn/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
German prune
mirabelle prune
prune belly syndrome
prune plum
prune tree
South African prune
alpha-beta pruning en