prune
noun
verb
1.
2.
weed out unwanted or unnecessary things
- “We had to lose weight, so we cut the sugar from our diet”
Origin
From Middle English prunen, prounen, proinen, from Old French proignier (“to trim the feathers with the beak”), earlier prooignier. Likely influenced by Middle French rogner, Old French rooignier (“cut, trim”) (from Latin rotundo?), and possibly by Old French provainier (“provine”) (Latin propaginem? whence French provigner). The relation to the noun is thus unclear.
Phrases
- alpha-beta pruning en
- German prune
- mirabelle prune
- prune belly syndrome
- prune plum
- prune tree
- South African prune
Related words
Broader terms
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.