prune

• IPA^(key): /pɹuːn/
• Rhymes: -uːn

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

• see Thesaurus:old woman

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.

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     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

   • (Can we date this quote?) Francis Bacon

     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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     His royal bird / Prunes the immortal wing and cloys his beak.

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Dryden, All For Love, Epilogue.

     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.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Edmund Spenser to this entry?)

5. (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.

• 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

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prune f (plural prunes)

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

• pruneau
• prunier

• “prune” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

prūne

1. vocative singular of prūnus

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
• → English: prune

• IPA^(key): /ˈpru.ne/

prune

1. plural of prună