brine

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English brine,^[2][3] inherited from Old English brīne, also brȳne,^[4][5][6][7] a feminine noun glossing Latin salsūgō and muria.^[8] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Germanic *brīnǭ.^[1] Its only clear relatives are Middle Dutch brīne and its descendant brijn;^[4][9][7][3] beyond these the history is unknown.^{[4][3][7][10][11]} Merriam-Webster compares Latin fricō (“to rub”),^[6] Holthausen connected it with Slavic, Iranian and Indic words meaning "sharp, biting" or "to cut",^[12] and Partridge suggests, with a query, a basic idea of "bitter".^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Salt water, water strongly impregnated with salt: Old English brȳne is recorded before 1000 in Ælfric's Glossary,^[9][4] and the Middle English word in the Cursor Mundi, composed about 1325, of bitter water found in the wilderness.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

From salt water the word passed in poetry to the sea itself, recorded from 1605 in Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas,^[4] and to salt tears, from 1594 in Shakespeare's Lucrece;^[4] Merriam-Webster marks the "tears" sense obsolete.^[6] The verb, to steep or pickle in brine, follows in 1552, in Huloet's dictionary,^[4][6] and the adjective briny in 1608;^[9] Weekley compares the colloquial the briny for the sea with Dickens's Dick Swiveller.^[11] Johnson (1755) defined it as water impregnated with salt and quoted Bacon on brine strong enough to float an egg.^[14] In chemistry and industry brine came to mean any strong salt solution, such as the calcium chloride brine used in refrigeration.^[6][15] In Cheshire, the people of Nantwich once kept Ascension Day by "blessing the brine" at the old salt pit with dancing and feasting.^[16]

Timeline

• before 1000 – Old English brȳne, salt water.^[9][4]
• c. 1325 – Middle English brine, in the Cursor Mundi.^[2][9]
• 1552 – verb, to treat or steep with brine.^[4][6]
• 1594 – salt tears (poetic).^[4]
• 1605 – the sea (chiefly poetic).^[4]
• 1608 – the adjective briny.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. Water strongly saturated with salt, used especially for pickling and preserving food: She left the olives to cure in brine for a month.^[15][6][4]
2. (chemistry) A concentrated solution of sodium chloride or another salt in water, as used in refrigeration.^[15][6]
3. (chiefly poetic) The sea, or its water.^[15][6][4]
4. (poetic, obsolete) Tears.^[6][4]

Verb

1. To soak in or treat with brine: The cook brined the turkey overnight.^[15][6][4]

Word family

• briner
• brineless
• brinish
• brinishness
• briny
• brine shrimp

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)