PRUNE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Prune

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verb

Prune v. t. (past & past part. pruned; pres. part. pruning)

To lop or cut off the superfluous parts, branches, or shoots of; to clear of useless material; to shape or smooth by trimming; to trim: as, to prune trees; to prune an essay. "Taking into consideration how they (laws) are to be pruned and reformed." "Our delightful task To prune these growing plants, and tend these flowers."

To cut off or cut out, as useless parts. "Horace will our superfluous branches prune."

To preen; to prepare; to dress. "His royal bird Prunes the immortal wing and cloys his beak."

Prune v. i. To dress; to prink; -used humorously or in contempt.

noun

Prune n. A plum; esp., a dried plum, used in cookery; as, French or Turkish prunes; California prunes.

German prune (Bot.), a large dark purple plum, of oval shape, often one-sided. It is much used for preserving, either dried or in sirup.

Prune tree. (Bot.)

(a)

A tree of the genus Prunus (Prunus domestica), which produces prunes.

(b)

The West Indian tree, Prunus occidentalis.

South African prune (Bot.), the edible fruit of a sapindaceous tree (Pappea Capensis).

See images of 'Prune'

Etymology of 'Prune'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Prune" Quotes from Famous Books

... now the winged inhabitants That in the woods their sweet lives sing away, Flee from the form of man, but gather round, And prune their feathers on the hands Which little children stretch in friendly sport Towards these dreadless ...

— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock

... may be true. We have seen very conclusively that when you prune even a little you ...

— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... minister are dwelt upon), and "Matthew Wald," which is itself the history of a lunatic as full of horrors, and those of no very different kind, as the Confessions themselves. That editing, and perhaps something more than editing, on Lockhart's part would have been exactly the thing necessary to prune and train and direct the Shepherd's disorderly luxuriance into the methodical madness of the Justified Sinner—to give Hogg's loose though by no means vulgar style the dress of his own polished manner—to weed and shape ...

— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... no teaching more frequently insisted upon in the Old and in the New Testament as the truth of a judgment, now, or in the future, upon the misdeeds or sins of men. Let criticism prune and cut as it will, while it exhibits the deplorably low standard of morality once prevalent among the Hebrew peoples, and therefore prevalent among their Gods, their Elohim, Adonai and Jahveh, one thing, at least, is undeniable—that that ...

— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... fathers meandered across the main street and into a grocery store. He plucked a semi-petrified prune from its sticky environment and drew a ...

— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen

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