Meaning

(obsolete) A plum..

Definitions by Sense

1. (obsolete) A plum.
2. The dried, wrinkled fruit of certain species of plum.
3. (figurative) Something wrinkly like a prune.
4. (slang) An old woman, especially a wrinkly one.
5. (intransitive, informal) To become wrinkled like a dried plum, as the fingers and toes do when kept submerged in water.
6. (transitive, horticulture) To remove excess material from a tree or shrub; to trim, especially to make more healthy or productive.
7. (transitive, figuratively) To cut down or shorten (by the removal of unnecessary material).
8. (transitive) To remove (something unnecessary) for the sake of cutting down or shortening that which it was previously part of.

Example Sentences

We are not free when we are in the grip of the false conditioning that decrees that we need sex. We are not free if we believe the culture's ominous warnings that we will become "horny" (what a callous, offensive word) and frustrated and neurotic and finally shrivel up into prunes and have to abandon hope of being good, creative, effective people.

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

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

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

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

to prune a budget, or an essay

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

When internal dissension and a decline in popularity set in, Johnny was pruned from the Crests.

Word Forms

• prunes
• proin
• pruning
• pruned

Synonyms for prune

Related Words

When Should You Use Prune?

Use prune when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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