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






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prune" Quotes from Famous Books



... well-being consists in learning it and in adjusting our lives to it. When we cross it or seek to contravene it, we are destroyed. But Nature in her universal procedures is not rational, as I am rational when I weed my garden, prune my trees, select my seed or my stock, or arm myself with tools or weapons. In such matters I take a short cut to that which Nature reaches by a slow, roundabout, and wasteful process. How does she weed her garden? By the survival of the fittest. How does she select her breeding-stock? ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... these poets was twofold: they had not only to prune and purify their dialect and produce verses, they had also to find readers, to create a public, to begin a propaganda. The first means adopted was the publication of the Armana prouvencau, already referred to. In 1855, five hundred copies were issued, in 1894, twelve ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... sift the wheat from his chaff, and leave him no better reputation than that of the quarry from which the marble of the statue comes. He must tell a consecutive story, but must eschew all redundancy, furnish no more supports for his bridge than its stability requires, prune his tree so severely that it shall bear none but good fruit, forbear to freight the memory of his reader with a cargo so unwieldy as to sink it. On the other hand, of course, he must beware of being ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... Black Rim or the Lorrigan outfit that's all wrong. I know all about grandad and all the various and sundry uncles and forbears that earned us the name of being bad; it makes darn interesting stuff to tell now and then to some of the fellows who were raised in a prune orchard and will sit and listen with watering mouths and eyes goggling. I've been a hero, months on end, just for the things that my grandad did in the seventies. Of course," he pulled his lips ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

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

... and with darts. Spears plunged into men's flesh: dread Ares drank His fill of blood: struck down fell man on man, As Greek and Trojan fought. In level poise The battle-balance hung. As when young men In hot haste prune a vineyard with the steel, And each keeps pace with each in rivalry, Since all in strength and age be equal-matched; So did the awful scales of battle hang Level: all Trojan hearts beat high, and firm Stood they in trust on aweless Ares' might, While the Greeks trusted in Achilles' ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... wanted to carry with him to Washington the memory of Alice Windham as she walked beside him in the mellow Winter sunshine. An odor of fruit blossoms came to them almost unreally sweet, and farther down the street they saw many little street-stands where flowering branches of prune ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

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

... will sell him for a hundred piasters to Bacon or to Bungay. The rubbish is saleable enough, sir; and my advice to you is this: the next time you go home for a holiday, take 'Walter Lorraine' in your carpet-bag—give him a more modern air, prune away, though sparingly, some of the green passages, and add a little comedy, and cheerfulness, and satire, and that sort of thing, and then we'll take him to market, and sell him. The book is not a wonder of wonders, but it will ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... answered, looking down at the queer little dots and spirals on her paper. "I daresay we'll have to prune it before it's printed. But it is a good fluency, a rich fluency. To me it is irresistible—like a spring freshet, like the sap rushing madly through all the ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... the poor old prune. (Crossing to ABU, garrulously.) How are you, Sheik? Our little ward, Rose, is so young and foolish! But I was just that innocent when I was in the chorus. When I came out of it, believe me, I was a different ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... carnal man," said the King, peevishly. "Dreams are the gifts of the saints, and are not granted to such as thou! Dost thou think that, in the prune of my manhood, I could have youth and beauty forced on my sight, and hear man's law and man's voice say, 'They are thine, and thine only,' and not feel that war was brought to my hearth, and a snare set on my bed, and that the fiend had set watch on my soul? Verily, I tell thee, man ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... his life had Rollo seen such a strange woman as Miss Myra Stark. She was very pale except her lips, which were painted a rich prune colour; her yellow hair was cut very like Rollo's except that it had no curl. Her smock was of coarse burlap with a ...
— Rollo in Society - A Guide for Youth • George S. Chappell

... my thoughts from those who shared my dawn of day, My fresh and joyous morning prune, and now are passed away, I can see just how sweet all is, how good, and be resigned To sit thus in the afternoon, alone ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge

... understood that either he, or some other member of the gardeners' corporation to which he belongs, will continue to take care of your garden as long as you own it. At each season he will pay your garden a visit, and put everything to rights—he will clip the hedges, prune the fruit trees, [405] repair the fences, train the climbing-plants, look after the flowers,—putting up paper awnings to protect delicate shrubs from the sun during the hot season, or making little tents of straw to shelter them in ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... my lord the duke would turn it into the funniest of rondels, all the rhymes being the names of the cases of nouns or the moods of verbs; and Maistre Estienne would make reply in similar fashion, seeking to prune the story of its more humiliating episodes. If Fredet was too long away from Court, a rondel went to upbraid him; and it was in a rondel that Fredet would excuse himself. Sometimes two or three, or as many as a dozen, would ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... prune at the best," Pink said stubbornly, "but I am not going to let you go into that place alone. You can rave all ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... would induce him to investigate its merits; what would likely cause him to take it up, and so on; he should think and write fully along these general lines, incorporate these reasons into an advertisement; then boil it down by cutting out the unnecessary words and sentences; prune, remodel, and rewrite until he has a brief advertisement, clear, concise, and ...
— Practical Pointers for Patentees • Franklin Cresee

... condensed and polished them to his mind. There is nothing choicer in the English language than some of his narratives, descriptions, and sketches of character, but in his best books he did not always prune sufficiently, and in his last work, Wild Wales, he seemed to me to have lost the faculty altogether. Mr. Murray long refused to publish it unless it was curtailed, and Borrow, with his usual self-will and self-confidence, refused to retrench the trivialities. ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... Prune extract and bright alcohol, so wooden One kills its flavor in rank fusel oil! C2-H3-HO—a rather good 'un To mix with fruity syrups in our toil To give our social meetings after dark Their necessary spark! And you, most heavenly twins, Born of one mother— Although our woe ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... untrammelled curiosity no charms? Would I, for example, forego my casual kakemonos, my ignorantly acquired majolica, some trifling accumulation of Greek coins, that handful of Eastern rugs? Could I prune away certain excrescent minor Whistlers? those bits of ivory cutting from old Italy and Japan? those tarnished Tuscan panels?—in truth, I could and would not. Yet had I stuck to my first love, prints, I should by this time be mentioned ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather

... and looked at Casey humbly. "Well, I ain't never wrote a check in my life. Now I tell yuh. I ain't got the money to pay for these tires, but I tell yuh what I'll do; I'm goin' on up to my brother—he's got a prune orchard a little ways out from San Jose, an' he's well fixed. Now I'll write out an order on my brother, fer him to send you the money. He's good fer it, an' he'll do it. I'm goin' on up to help ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... her to be taken without delay to a specialist to have the eyeball removed. The parents then called me over the telephone to come at once. When I arrived and saw the eye, it looked to me like a dried up prune stone. I anointed the child, but could find no words to utter in prayer. I could only groan, but the Lord witnessed to the healing. (I think this took place on Saturday at 11 o'clock a.m. and the next day, Sunday, she was brought to ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag

... soup; 3 saltines; Swiss cheese and rye bread sandwich; 1 square butter; prune whip, soft custard sauce; 1 ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn

... him to a certain house, Lisbeth," I said, as her eyes met mine; "an old house that stands not far from the village of Down, in Kent, to prune the roses and things. I should like it to be looking its best when ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... not, withered." These words are expounded by Gregory, who says (Hom. x super Ezech.): "When a man who hates his neighbor, breaks himself of other vices, rain falls on one part of the city, leaving the other part withered, for there are some men who, when they prune some vices, become much more rooted in others." Therefore one sin can be ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... fair banks of Severn or of Trent, There might'st thou find some elegant retreat, Some hireling senator's deserted seat; And stretch thy prospects o'er the smiling land, For less than rent the dungeons of the Strand; There prune thy walks, support thy drooping flowers, Direct thy rivulets, and twine thy bowers; And, while thy grounds a cheap repast afford, Despise the dainties of a venal lord: There every bush with Nature's music rings, 220 There every breeze bears health upon its wings; On all thy hours Security shall ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... woolly flavor. When we climbed a little higher, we found that the true source from which the fountain is supplied was above, and that an Arab was washing a flock of sheep in it! We continued our walk along the side of the mountain to the other end of the city, through gardens of almond, apricot, prune, and walnut-trees, bound each to each by great vines, whose heavy arms they seemed barely able to support. The interior of the town is dark and filthy; but it has a long, busy bazaar extending its whole length, and a cafe, where we procured the ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... does any one any good to be humbled!" maintained Jane, stoutly and with reason. "Especially if it's a poor, frail little soul that aint got no mother! I did what I thought best, though I can't afford it no way in the world! To prune and dress a lie aint going to make it grow into a truth!" She rose. "I guess I'll see if Henry Jonas'll be willing to take ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead

... day! With night we banish sorrow. Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft To give my Love good-morrow! Wings from the wind to please her mind, Notes from the lark I'll borrow; Bird, prune thy wing! nightingale, sing! To give my Love good-morrow! To give my Love good-morrow Notes from them all ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... obscurantist, or that I am indifferent to the value of education and the benefits of intellectual culture, when I declare that all these may be attained, and the nature of the tree remain exactly what it was. You may prune, you may train along the wall, you may get bigger fruit, you will not get better fruit. Did you ever hear the exaggerated line that describes one of the pundits of science as 'the greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind'? ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... "he cannot commit simony, though he would never so fain." But how strongly and agreeably to reason these things be spoken, we are not as yet able to perceive, except perchance these men have plucked off the wings from the truth; as the Romans in old time did prune and pinion their goddess Victoria, after they had once gotten her home, to the end that with the same wings she should never more be able to flee away from them again. But what if Jeremy tell them, as is afore rehearsed, that these be lies? What ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel

... alone the countless barks behold; Earth's inland realms their naval paths unfold. Her plains, long portless, now no more complain Of useless rills and fountains nursed in vain; Canals curve thro them many a liquid line, Prune their wild streams, their lakes and oceans join. Where Darien hills o'erlook the gulphy tide, Cleft in his view the enormous banks divide; Ascending sails their opening pass pursue, And waft the sparkling treasures of Peru. Moxoe resigns his stagnant world ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... see, supper was a dollar an' four bits, drinks two dollars, an' two dollars for this bottle of prune-juice that's about gone already, an'—Hey, Bat, you're four bits shy! Frisk yourself an' I'll play you a showdown for them four bits." The other grinned and held a silver half dollar between his finger ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... as Frederick in "Lovers' Vows," repeating his first success; and on January 8, 1821, he benefited as Octavian in the "Mountaineers," a play associated with the early glories of Edmund Kean. In this year, also, he made his first and only venture as a manager, boldly taking the Prune Street Theatre, Philadelphia, and giving a successful performance of "Richard III.," which not only pleased the audience, but brought him a few dollars of profit. He made many attempts to secure a regular engagement in one of the Western circuits, where experience could be gained; and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... whole story, greeted him warmly. They were sure he was hungry after all that evidence. Smither should toast him some more muffins, his dear father had eaten them all. He must put his legs up on the sofa; and he must have a glass of prune brandy too. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... brave Raleigh spake; Or bid the new be English, ages hence, (For use will farther what's begot by sense) Pour the full tide of eloquence along, } Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong, } Rich with the treasures of each foreign tongue; } Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine, But show no mercy to an empty line: Then polish all, with so much life and ease, You think 'tis nature, and a knack to please: "But ease in writing flows from art, not chance; As those move easiest who have learned to dance." If such the plague and ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... their legs, almost ploughing the ground up with their noses, and staring stupidly about them. Every well-kept vineyard ought to be as free from stones as possible, and therefore the peasants, when they weed, dig a trench about the vines, or prune them, always remove at the same time whatever stones or flints they may meet with; these are piled at the end of the vineyard in a heap of about twenty feet square and six feet high, called ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... God—not only love to God, but like God, from God, and fixed on the same objects and ends which He loves. It is a Divine implantation by the Holy Ghost. Perhaps some of you are saying, "Then it is useless for me to try to cultivate it, because I have not got it,—exactly!" You may cut and prune and water forever, but you can never cultivate that which is not planted. Your first work is to get this love shed abroad in your heart. It is one of the delusions of this age that human nature only wants pruning, improving, developing, ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth

... well in Belfield outside of my own home. Nature, too, seemed tenderer of it than of other wildnesses, and had set the seal of her choice upon it with every gift of fern and vine and moss and lichen. No axe had invaded these solitudes for years except to prune away a too riotous undergrowth along the cart-path: the trees grew in grand natural aisles, and to look through the noble colonnade into mysterious vistas of copsewood gloom and stillness was for me to thrill with that blissful agony of youthful ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... making such a fuss," she continued, "but there are some subjects too horrible even to dwell upon or speak of, and that is one. I am going into the garden, Lance; perhaps you and Mr. Ford would like your cigars there? I am going to prune a favorite rose ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme

... with prunes conducted at the Santa Rosa ranch have been of the greatest value to the state. For forty years the prune growers of the Pacific slope had been searching for a variety of this fruit which would be as rich in sugar and as abundant a bearer as the little California prune of commerce, and yet of a larger size, and earlier in ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini

... me prune and flounce my perruque a little for her; there's ne'er a young fellow in the town but will do as much for a mere stranger ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... Stew prunes, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. In a well-greased baking-dish place one-quarter of the noodles, bits of butter or other fat, add one-half of the prunes, then another layer of the noodles, butter or fat, the remaining prunes, the rest of the noodles. Pour over the prune juice and spread crumbs over top and bake in a moderate oven ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum

... I heard him remark this morning that he almost despaired of your ever bearing fruit, or looking even presentable. I am sure we each have the same soil to draw our nourishment from, and one hand to prune ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams

... pretty fluttering thing, Must we no longer live together? And dost thou prune thy trembling wing To take thy flight thou know'st not whither? Thy hum'rous vein, thy pleasing folly, Lie all neglected, all forgot; And pensive, wav'ring, melancholy, Thou dread'st and ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... are slices of bread and German sausage, bottles of milk and of beer, and plenty of fresh and delicious prunes, for the prune orchards are loaded with ripe fruit. This is their dinner, for they will ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews

... THUS if small Birds prune themselves and duck and make a shew of washing. If Crows make a great Noise in the Evening, if Geese gaggle more than usual, these are all Signs of Rain, because these Animals love wet Weather, and rejoice at the ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge

... of Men— Sole partner and sole part of all these joys, Dearer thy self than all;— But let us ever praise him, and extol His bounty, following our delightful Task, To prune these growing plants, and tend these flowrs; Which were it toilsome, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... the controversy raged with unabated fury. The boiled prune, blandest and most inoffensive of breakfast dishes, formed the basis of a spirited debate. There were pro-prunists and there were con-prunists. The parsnip had its champions and its antagonists; the carrot its defenders and ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... low laugh startled Debby, though it was smothered like the babes in the Tower; and, turning, she beheld the trespasser scarlet with confusion, and sobered with a tardy sense of his transgression. Debby was not a starched young lady of the "prune and prism" school, but a frank, free-hearted little body, quick to read the sincerity of others, and to take looks and words at their real value. Dickens was her idol; and for his sake she could have forgiven a greater offence than this. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... the first is tinged with venous blood, or even when the sputum is very bloody, of the prune-juice variety, the heart is in serious trouble, and the right ventricle has generally become weak and possibly dilated. The heart may have been diseased and therefore is unable to overcome the pressure in the lungs during ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.

... Must we no longer live together? And dost thou prune thy trembling wing, To take thy flight thou know'st not whither? Thy humorous vein, thy pleasing folly Lies all neglected, all forgot; And pensive, wavering, melancholy, Thou dread'st and hop'st thou know'st not ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... men, who write such verse as we can read! Their own strict judges, not a word they spare, That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care; Pour the full tide of eloquence along, Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong; Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine, But show no mercy to an empty line; Then polish all with so much life and ease, You think 'tis nature, and a knack to please; But ease in writing flows from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... distressed consort, Adam leads her into the garden to prune over-luxuriant branches and to train vines from tree to tree. While they are thus occupied, the Almighty summons Raphael, and, after informing him Satan has escaped from hell and has found his way to Paradise to disturb ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... to know something of pruning trees. To cut or prune gooseberry and currant-trees is very simple. Gooseberry-trees should be cut differently from currant-trees. In gooseberry-trees, much of the fruit grows on wood of the last year's growth, but on currant-trees, the fruit is, for the most part, found near ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin

... amount of new material, some of it home-made, some of it drawn from foreign sources, was added; but the great bulk of the new service-book had been contained in one or other of the older manuals. The Reformers did but clip and prune, with that exquisite taste and judgment which belong by tradition to English gardeners, the overgrowth and rank luxuriance of a too long neglected, "careless-ordered" garden. But whence came the earlier formularies themselves, from which Cranmer and the rest quarried the stone for ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... shore Shall fair earth yield unto thy stalwart arms; No, thou may'st dig, and prune, and plant in vain, And noxious worms and things of poisonous harms Shall not be banished at the will of Cane; Thou'lt set seed-bearing root, Thou'lt plant life-giving fruit No more, ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins

... friends. You have taught me that an obligation rests upon whoever wields the pen: he must have something to say that is capable of interesting us. When the subject comes within the scope of natural science, the interest is nearly always assured; the difficulty, the great difficulty, is to prune it of its thorns and to present it under a prepossessing aspect. Truth, they say, rises naked from a well. Agreed; but admit that she is all the better for being decently clothed. She craves, if not the ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... proper to prune young trees like this for the first time until they have taken firm root. Trees recently planted have not sufficient strength to bear the operation. You know that the roots can grow only by means of the leaves, so that if you take the ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... Over all other Creatures that possesse Earth, Aire, and Sea. Then let us not think hard One easie prohibition, who enjoy Free leave so large to all things else, and choice Unlimited of manifold delights: But let us ever praise him, and extoll His bountie, following our delightful task To prune these growing Plants, & tend these Flours, Which were it toilsom, yet with thee were sweet. To whom thus Eve repli'd. O thou for whom 440 And from whom I was formd flesh of thy flesh, And without whom am to no end, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... while safe and sober Dulness observes one tedious and insipid round of tiresome uniformity, and steers equally clear of eccentricity and of beauty. Dulness has few redundancies to retrench, few luxuriancies to prune, and few irregularities to smooth. These, though errors, are the errors of Genius, for there is rarely redundancy without plenitude, or irregularity without greatness. The excesses of Genius may easily be retrenched, but the deficiencies ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... had always been a favourite of Mrs. Ogilvie since that Whit-sunday nearly two months ago when she saw him looking at her garden and invited him in, and every time he revisited the Vicarage he had devoted some of his time to helping her weed or prune or do whatever she wanted to do in her garden. He was also on friendly terms with Miriam, the elder of Mr. Ogilvie's two sisters, who was very like her brother in appearance and who gave to the house ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... about getting back that when Antonio left the corral gate open I never thought to speak to him. And Ruggles's Dynamo—they've let him run away again—just walked in and butted open the orchard bars and he's loose now eating the prune trees!" ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... as if it were my fault. Why didn't you plant them earlier? I don't believe you know any of the tricks of your profession, James. You never seem to graft anything or prune anything, and I'm sure you don't know how to cut a slip. James, why don't you prune more? Prune now—I should like to watch you. Where's your pruning-hook? You can't possibly do ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... use to say nought to your uncle. If somebody was to come and steal his legs I don't b'lieve he'd holler 'Stop thief!' but when it comes to my fruit, as I'm that proud on it grieves me to see it picked, walking over the wall night after night, I feel sometimes as it's no good to prune ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... get into print the battle is won, for it will be an incentive to you to persevere and improve yourself at every turn. Go over everything you write, cut and slash and prune until you get it into as perfect form as possible. Eliminate every superfluous word and be careful to strike out all ambiguous expressions ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... Cattle, to feed Clover crops College, agricultural Cropping, table of Cuckoo, note of Diseases of plants Drainage reports Evergreens, to transplant, by Mr. Glendinning Farming in Norfolk, high Farming, Mr. Mechi's, by Mr. Wilkins Farming, rule of thumb, by Mr. Wilkins Fruit trees, to root prune Gardeners' Benevolent Institution, by Mr. Wheeler Gardening, villa and suburban Grapes in pots Guano frauds Highland Patriotic Society Kew, Victoria Regia at Peel, Sir R., death of Pike, voracity of, by Mr. Lovell Plants, diseases of Plants, names of Potato disease Reviews, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various

... orders, they seem even to prune it of the greater part of its branches, and concentrate the threads of sap which remain in a few twigs;" and he thought of a Carmelite convent to which he had gone from time to time, remembered their ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... they did not indulge in secret feasts. The district, with its rows of open shops full of fruit and cakes and preserves, was no longer a closed paradise, in front of which they prowled with greedy, covetous appetites. As they passed the shops they now extended their hands and pilfered a prune, a few cherries, or a bit of cod. They also provisioned themselves at the markets, keeping a sharp look-out as they made their way between the stalls, picking up everything that fell, and often assisting the fall by a push of ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... must the Bard his glowing thoughts confine, [lxii] Lest Censure hover o'er some faulty line? Remove whate'er a critic may suspect, To gain the paltry suffrage of "Correct"? 420 Or prune the spirit of each daring phrase, To fly from Error, not ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... one's own fruit. There are three other reasons, each of more importance. First is quality. The commercial grower cannot afford to grow the very finest fruit. Many of the best varieties are not large enough yielders to be available for his use, and he cannot, on a large scale, so prune and care for his trees that the individual fruits receive the greatest possible amount of sunshine and thinning out—the personal care that is required for the very best quality. Second, there is the beauty and the value that well kept fruit trees add to a place, ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... Lord Oxford for Mr. Pope's use out of Cowley's preface." Malone appears to have discovered this observation of Cowley's, which is curious enough, and very ungrateful to that commentator's ideas: it is "to prune and lop away the old withered branches" in the new editions of Shakspeare and other ancient poets! "Pope adopted," says Malone, "this very unwarrantable idea; Oldys was the person who suggested to Pope the singular course he pursued in his edition of Shakspeare." Without ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... merely compassionate." He held up his hand for inspection. "Look at that blister. It's as big as a dime and feels like a prune. They're not done yet and they'd induce you to duplicate it if they ever got you into their clutches. So long as it's all in the family I think one blister is about sufficient. Better lay ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge

... "There you go! That's the sort of stuff I'll have to listen to from now on. I hope to goodness you choke on a prune! That's about all you'll get there; prunes and boiled rice. I'm not sure about the rice, either, at the second's table. I think the second simply has prunes. Boiled prunes for breakfast, roast prunes for dinner and dried prunes for supper. I—I shall expect ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour

... a long hard trip then across the plains. One of the author's friends at the age of thirteen years drove a little band of cows from the State of Indiana to Sacramento. He says he would not do it again for anything. He is now a man, and owns a large prune-orchard in California, and people tell him he is getting too stout, and that he ought to exercise more, and that he ought to walk every day several miles; but he shakes his head, and says, "No, I will not walk any ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... shaggy meaning of her name This Buffalo, this recreant town, Sharps and lawyers prune and tame: Few pioneers in Buffalo; Except young lovers flushed and fleet And winds hallooing down the ...
— Chinese Nightingale • Vachel Lindsay

... in July, "a large surface of young and succulent leaves were ready to receive the spores of the Hemeleia." The germination of the spores was rapid, and the young leaves were soon destroyed. The planter then, he says, should manure and prune so as to grow matured leaves during those months when the least damp and wind may be expected. And the same remarks are evidently equally valuable as regards rot, and show us the necessity of modifying our manurial and pruning practices ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... Annixter, spitting out a prune stone. "You give Magnus Derrick my compliments and tell him he's a fool." "What do ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... excitement to the young student, who is to step forth before the public eye, a candidate for the laurels of fame;—a day of weariness and stiffness to the dignified professors, obliged to sit hour after hour, listening to the florid eloquence whose luxuriance they have in vain attempted to prune, or trying to listen while the spirit yawns and stretches itself to its drowsy length;—a day of intense interest to the young maiden, who sees among the youthful band of aspirants one who is the "bright ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... Whar'd he git de ham? I doan know; dey wa'n't no hams on de plantation 'cep'n' w'at 'uz in de smoke-house, but I never see Henry 'bout de smoke-house. But ez I wuz a-sayin', he tuk de ham ober ter Aun' Peggy's; en Aun' Peggy tole 'im dat w'en Mars Dugal' begin ter prune de grapevimes, he mus' go en take 'n scrape off de sap whar it ooze out'n de cut een's er de vimes, en 'n'int his ball head wid it; en ef he do dat once't a year de goopher would n' wuk agin 'im long ez he done it. En bein' ez he fotch her de ham, she fix' it so he ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt

... price and came away sorrowful. Even Danny understood that a turkey was not to be thought of. They compromised on a pot-roast because it makes so much gravy, and with this and the prospect of potatoes and turnips and prune-pie, the family had ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... that followed, Billy showed the stuff he was made of. He insisted upon cooking the things that would take the longest time to prepare; boasted volubly of the prune pies he could make, and then set about demonstrating his skill and did not hurry the prunes in the stewing. He fished out a package of dried lima beans and cooked some of them, changing the water three times and always adding cold water. ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... authorship of the bad jokes he took pains to circulate.[81] The proceedings of the Legislature he regarded with real alarm whenever their object was to alter what the public voice pronounced capable of amendment, or prune what was judged superfluous. The vote of the House of Commons on the 1st of March, for discontinuing the services of one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and that given on the 2nd of May for getting rid of one of the Postmasters-General, his Lordship called "stripping the Crown naked," ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... one sunny afternoon, with my back to a clump of azaleas, watching an old coloured gardener—so old that he had started life as an "owned" negro, they said, and certainly still retained the familiar suavity of the old-time darky—I was watching him prune the shrubs when I heard the voice of Rupert K. Vaness ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... faintly reflecting the pink of the satin coverlet. By the bed sat an old woman of the people. Her ragged white locks were bound about by a fillet of black silk; her face, dark as burnt umber, was seamed and lined like a withered prune; even her long broad nose was wrinkled; her dull eyes looked like mud-puddles; her big underlip was pursed up as if she had been speaking mincing words, and her chin was covered with a short white stubble. Over her coarse smock and gown she wore a black cotton reboso. ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... crude little chromos and boxed them in gaudy frames, many of whose atrocities were aggravated by panels of plush of a color that could hardly be described by any other name than fermented prune. Over the corner of these they had thrown "throws" or drapes of malicious magenta horribly figured in ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... a cup of prunes, and cover them with cold water and soak overnight. In the morning put them on the fire in the same water, and simmer till so tender that the stones will slip out. Cut each prune in two and sprinkle with sugar as you lay them in the mould; pour over them lemon jelly made by the recipe above, and put on ice. Turn out on a pretty dish, ...
— A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl • Caroline French Benton

... Beef juice and one egg; or, broth and meat; care being taken that the meat is always rare and scraped or very finely divided; beefsteak, mutton chop, or roast beef may be given. Very stale bread, or two pieces of zwieback. Prune pulp or baked apple, one to two ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt

... the nursery-propagated method of planting, and cultivate, prune, and spray their trees liberally. Transplanting is done in the months from ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... been re-named by his creator Jack Lofty. Garrick had objected to the introduction of Jack, on the ground that he was only a distraction. But Goldsmith, whether in writing a novel or a play, was more anxious to represent human nature than to prune a plot, and paid but little respect to the unities, if only he could arouse our interest. And who is not delighted with this Jack Lofty and his "duchessy" talk—his airs of patronage, his mysterious hints, his gay familiarity with the ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black

... was a very busy and eventful one for Bob. Plowing time was rapidly approaching, and his uncle was anxious to have all the manure placed on the fields ready to start work early; besides, they had taken a day off at Bob's urging to prune the young orchard. On Thursday he received a large package of Farm Bulletins from the Department of Agriculture at Washington, in reply to a postcard he had sent. He had only time for a hasty glance through them, before having to lay ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... days are never days of ease; I till my ground and prune my trees. When ripened gold is all the plain, I put my sickle to the grain. I labor hard, and toil and sweat, While others dream within the dell; But even while my brow is wet, I sing my song, ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... prune-grower in the mountain boundary west of Santa Clara Valley, turned in at the ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... the plantation of Mr. R.—he proved himself a real peasant, knew every plant by name, and was constantly stopping to pick a dead leaf or prune a shoot—we continued our journey and arrived at Tangoa. Tangoa is a small island, on which the Presbyterian mission has established a central school for the more intelligent of the natives of the whole group, where ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... quite spring-like. Prune cherry trees and currant bushes. Transplant plum tree sprouts. Messrs. Biddle and Drew finish preparing their ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... authentic materials, which have never yet appeared. It will, upon the whole, be a very curious and valuable history; though, between you and me, I could have wished that he had been more correct and elegant in his style. You will find it dedicated to one of your acquaintance, who was forced to prune the luxuriant praises bestowed upon him, and yet has left enough of all conscience to satisfy a reasonable man. Harte has been very much out of order these last three or four months, but is not the less intent upon sowing his lucerne, of which he had six ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth, and he saw that his olive-tree began to decay; and he said: I will prune it, and dig about it, and nourish it, that perhaps it may shoot forth young and tender branches, ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... needed in that climate without running into debt. For borrowed money they had to pay from two to three per cent, per month interest. Moreover, none of them were farmers; and they had to learn to cultivate, prune, and take care of their vines, to make wine, and to make a vegetable garden. They had from the first to raise and sell enough for their own support, and to pay at least the heavy interest on their debts. It resulted that for some years longer they had a struggle with a burden ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... place, and minds of different casts will differ as to the branch of the alternative which ought to be selected. If the English law is ever to assume an orderly distribution, it will be necessary to prune away the legal fictions which, in spite of some recent legislative improvements, are ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... it gets within all fence, cuts down to the root, and drinks the very vital sap of that it deals with: once there it is at liberty to throw up what new shoots it will, so always that the true juice and sap be in them, and to prune and twist them at its pleasure, and bring them to fairer fruit than grew on the old tree; but all this pruning and twisting is work that it likes not, and often does ill; its function and gift are the getting at the root, its nature and dignity ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... marriage into the family of Negrepelisse, and for him this meant a family connection with the Marquise d'Espard, and a political career in Paris. Here was a fair tree to cultivate in spite of the ill-omened, unsightly mistletoe that grew thick upon it; he would hang his fortunes upon it, and prune it, and wait till he could ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac

... roam from flower to flower, over as varied a garden as the imagination can well conceive. There have been brave workers before us in the field, and we shall build upon good foundations. We hope to be catholic in our selections; we shall prune away only the superfluous; we shall condense anecdotes only where we think we can make them pithier and racier. We will neglect no fact that is interesting, and blend together all that old Time can give us bearing upon London. Street by street we shall delve ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... to lay much weight on these latter characters. With respect to the shape of the fruit, we have conclusive evidence that it is extremely variable: Downing (10/74. 'Fruits of America' pages 276, 278, 284, 310, 314. Mr. Rivers raised ('Gardener's Chronicle' 1863 page 27) from the Prune-peche, which bears large, round, red plums on stout, robust shoots, a seedling which bears oval, smaller fruit on shoots that are so slender as to be almost pendulous.) gives outlines of the plums of two seedlings, namely, the ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... fray'd! His ensuing voice came like the thunder crash— Meanwhile the bolt shatters some pine or ash— "Thou feeble, wanton, foolish, fickle thing! Whom nought can frighten, sadden, or abash,— To hope my solemn countenance to wring To idiot smiles!—but I will prune ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... Mirabella of the Faery Queen, and his own late and happy marriage in Ireland, are also brought in to supply materials for the Legend of Courtesy. So multifarious is the poem, full of all that he thought, or observed, or felt; a receptacle, without much care to avoid repetition, or to prune, correct, and condense, for all the abundance of his ideas, as they welled forth in his mind day by day. It is really a collection of separate tales and allegories, as much as the Arabian Nights, or, as its counterpart and rival of our ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... anyone—even yourself—to criticise your gestures until after they are made. You can't prune a peach tree until it comes up; therefore speak much, and observe your own speech. While you are examining yourself, do not forget to study statuary and paintings to see how the great portrayers of nature have made their subjects ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... in England are all so large that they take an army of servants to run them, and the gardening and all that are done by one's men. But here with only yourselves you can do so much. You can feed your own chickens, you can prune your own trees, you can do such a lot yourselves. I should think it ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell



Words linked to "Prune" :   snip, trim, rationalise, clip, dress, disbud, cut, extinguish, shear, prune whip, poll, crop, top, lop, pollard, thin out



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