prune

• proin (obsolete)

• IPA^(key): /pɹuːn/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːn

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.

prune (plural prunes)

1. (obsolete) A plum.
2. The dried, wrinkled fruit of certain species of plum.

   Hyponym: alubukhara

3. (slang) An old woman, especially a wrinkly one.

prune (third-person singular simple present prunes, present participle pruning, simple past and past participle pruned)

1. (intransitive, informal) To become wrinkled like a dried plum, as the fingers and toes do when kept submerged in water.
   • 2005, Alycia Ripley, Traveling with an Eggplant (page 111)

     I hardly left that spot in my pool that month even when my fingers pruned and chlorine dried out my skin.

• see Thesaurus:old woman

• fruit

From Old French proignier (“to trim the feathers with the beak”), earlier prooignier, ultimately from Latin pro- ("front") + rotundus (“round”) 'to round-off the front'.

prune (third-person singular simple present prunes, present participle pruning, simple past and past participle pruned)

1. (transitive, horticulture) To remove excess material from a tree or shrub; to trim, especially to make more healthy or productive.

   A good grape grower will prune the vines once a year.

   • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene iii], page 191:

     But poore old man, thou prun'ſt a rotten tree, / That cannot ſo much as a bloſſome yeelde

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:

     Our delightful task / To prune these growing plants, and tend these flowers.

2. (transitive, figuratively) To cut down or shorten (by the removal of unnecessary material).

   to prune a budget, or an essay

   • 1605, Francis Bacon, “(please specify |book=1 or 2)”, in The Tvvoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the Proficience and Aduancement of Learning, Diuine and Humane, London: […] [Thomas Purfoot and Thomas Creede] for Henrie Tomes, […], OCLC 932932554:

     taking into consideration how they [laws] are to be pruned and reformed

3. (transitive, computer science) To remove unnecessary branches from a tree data structure.
4. (obsolete) To preen; to prepare; to dress.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

     She gins her feathers fowle disfigured
     Prowdly to prune, and sett on every side.

   • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene iv]:

     Hang him; he'll be made an example.

   • 1677, John Dryden, “Epilogue”, in All for Love or, The world well lost:

     For 'tis observed of every scribbling man, / He grows a fop as fast as e'er he can; / Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass, / If pink or purple best become his face.

• pruning
• alpha-beta pruning ^en

• Perun, unrep

From Old French prune, from Vulgar Latin *prūna, feminine singular formed from the neutral plural of Latin prūnum, from Ancient Greek προῦμνον (proûmnon).

• IPA^(key): /pʁyn/

• audio

  (file)

prune f (plural prunes)

1. plum
2. (slang) ticket (“traffic citation”)

• “prune”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

prūne

1. vocative singular of prūnus

• pruna

Borrowed from Old French prune, from Vulgar Latin *prūna, from Latin prūnum, from Ancient Greek προῦνον (proûnon), προῦμνον (proûmnon). Doublet of plomme.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpriu̯n(ə)/

prune (plural prunes)

1. A plum (fruit of Prunus domestica)
2. A prune (dried plum)
3. (pathology) A large, rounded boil.

• English: prune

• “prūne, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-05-26.

From Vulgar Latin *prūna, feminine singular formed from the neutral plural of Latin prūnum.

prune f (oblique plural prunes, nominative singular prune, nominative plural prunes)

1. plum (fruit)

• French: prune
• Norman: preune
• Walloon: pronne
• → Middle English: prune, pruna
  • English: prune

• IPA^(key): /ˈpru.ne/

prune

1. plural of prună