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Prune   /prun/   Listen
Prune

verb
(past & past part. pruned; pres. part. pruning)
1.
Cultivate, tend, and cut back the growth of.  Synonyms: clip, crop, cut back, dress, lop, snip, trim.
2.
Weed out unwanted or unnecessary things.  Synonyms: cut, rationalise, rationalize.



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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

... playhouse serves A giant Lyre, ornately gilded, On whose convenient coignes and curves The pert brown sparrows late have builded. They flit, and flirt, and prune their wings, Not awed at all by golden glitter, And make among the silent strings Their ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone

... 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 ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... intolerable neighbour, nor a decided villain: but yet, say what you will of rules, they destroy the genuine feeling of nature, as well as its true expression. Do not tell me "that this is too hard, that they only restrain and prune superfluous branches, etc." My good friend, I will illustrate this by an analogy. These things resemble love. A warmhearted youth becomes strongly attached to a maiden: he spends every hour of the day in her company, wears out his health, and lavishes ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe

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

... dates, figs (those dried round are better than layer figs) and raisins. Pitted dates and seedless raisins are best for light outfits. And do not despise the humble prune; buy the best grade in the market (unknown to landladies) and soak over night before stewing; it will be a revelation. Take a variety of dried fruits, and mix them in different combinations, sweet and tart, so as not to have the same sauce twice in succession; then you will learn that dried fruits ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... abrasion. V. subduct, subtract; deduct, deduce; bate, retrench; remove, withdraw, take from, take away; detract. garble, mutilate, amputate, detruncate^; cut off, cut away, cut out; abscind^, excise; pare, thin, prune, decimate; abrade, scrape, file; geld, castrate; eliminate. diminish &c 36; curtail &c (shorten) 201; deprive of &c (take) 789; weaken. Adj. subtracted &c v.; subtractive. Adv. in deduction &c n.; less; short of; minus, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... last two years, whether it's the 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 into their whimsical smile, "I've touched up the family biography here and there ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... very pale and very pretty, her transparent skin 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. In ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... will yourselves watch a few birds in flight, or opening and closing their wings to prune them, you will soon know as much as is needful for our art purposes; and, which is far more desirable, feel how very little we know, to any purpose, of even the familiar creatures that ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin

... friend Maistre Estienne le Gout, 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 set to work on the same refrain, the same idea, or in the same macaronic ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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. It was ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... welcome, 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

... kingdom 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 its assailants. In this quarter ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... sets" is a perverted one which usually goes with a love for the shell of the book rather than its meat. It is better far to prune out the obscure works and buy, a few at a time if necessary, the best known works of favorite authors, than to clutter up one's bookshelves with volumes which will never be opened. Partial sets acquired in this way can be of uniform edition and gain in value ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... turn 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

... are packed, transported and cared for in the field, the quicker will the roots take hold and the vines make the vigorous start on which so much depends. The nurseryman should be requested not to prune much before packing and to pack the vines well for shipping. The vines should be heeled-in as soon as they reach their destination. If the vines are dry on arrival, they should be drenched well before ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... 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 them away for ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... cavity of the head, as the sinuses or guttural pouches. The discharge of glanders is of a peculiar sticky nature and adheres tenaciously to the wings of the nostrils. The discharge of pneumonia is of a somewhat red or reddish brown color and, on this account has been described as a prune-juice discharge. The discharge may contain blood. If the blood appears as clots or as streaks in the discharge, it probably originates at some point in the upper part of the respiratory tract. If the blood is in the form of a fine froth, it comes ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... cuttings, and is going to bring some young fig trees. Thus we shall have quite an orchard, if they grow, but the "if" is a big one. The people do not seem to take any trouble with their fruit trees and hardly ever prune them. Perhaps they are disheartened on account of the rats. Most of the orchards are a long way off in ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... parallel was the comedian who is compelled to take himself seriously and make the most of it, or a tart plum that concludes in a mellow prune. ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... Vnckles teaching. This is Worcester Maleuolent to you in all Aspects: Which makes him prune himselfe, and bristle vp The crest of ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... continues in force for about fifteen years. There is, however, no rule of progress unless the orchards are well cared for, and I would not lead any one to the mistake of planting an orchard and then doing nothing but wait. Cultivate, feed, prune, spray, dig bores, fight mice, rabbits, aphides, and the thousand other enemies to trees and fruit, and do these things all the time and then keep on doing them, and you will win out. Omit all or any of them, and the chances ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... be cited the absence from this play of the long speeches which went hand in hand with the learned reasoning and soliloquies of Sackville and Norton. Quite undeniably of classical influence, however, is the refinement and restraint noticeable throughout the play. These we welcome. They prune the tree of native drama without hacking off its stoutest limbs. Under their control tragedy steps upon the stage in an English dress to prove herself worthy of her Roman sister and ultimately ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... or 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 pains ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... [hh]Could'st thou resign the park and play, content, For the 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; [K] And, while thy grounds a cheap repast afford, Despise the dainties of a venal lord: There ev'ry bush with nature's musick rings; There ev'ry breeze bears ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... And say, she's no prune-fed pacifist, Cousin Myra. Course, she don't swing the hammer quite so open when the folks get back, for Vee ain't one you can walk on with hobnails and get away with it. I guess Myra suspicioned that. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... my knowledge, are entertained by colonizationists: their only aim and anxiety seem to be, 'to prune and nourish the system,'—not to overthrow it; to increase the avarice of the planters by rendering the labor of their bondmen more productive,—not to abridge and starve it; to remove the cause of those apprehensions which might lead them to break the fetters of their victims,—not to perpetuate ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

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

... underworld before you came to it," said Sally. "You wouldn't think it to look at him, but he was once a prune-eater among the proletariat, even as you and I. Mrs. Meecher looks on him as ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... 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 ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... Prune thou thy words; the thoughts control That o'er thee swell and throng:— They will condense within thy soul, And change to ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... a dulcimer. It was so charming to rake and plant and prune that I remained out a long time, and tore ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... imperial gage, "grows freely and rises rapidly, and has long dark shoots." The famous Washington plum bears a globular fruit, but its offspring, the emerald drop, is nearly as much elongated as the most elongated plum figured by Downing, namely, Manning's prune. I have made a small collection of the stones of twenty-five kinds, and they graduate in shape from the bluntest into the sharpest kinds. As characters derived from seeds are generally of high systematic importance, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin



Words linked to "Prune" :   shear, pollard, dried fruit, eliminate, trim, top, do away with, thin out, get rid of, pinch, poll, disbud, pruning, extinguish



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