prune

Pronunciation

• IPA: /pɹuːn/ (UK); /pɹun/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

The fruit word is inherited from Middle English prune, borrowed from Old French prune (“plum”),^[2][3][4][5] from Vulgar Latin *prūna, taken as singular from the plural of Latin prūnum (“plum”),^[2][3][4][6] a borrowing of Greek proûmnon, probably from a language of Asia Minor.^[4][6] The verb is inherited from Middle English proinen,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French proignier (“to cut back (vines)”),^[2][3][4][5] which may come from Vulgar Latin *prōretundiāre (“to round off in front”), from Latin rotundus (“round”).^[2][3][4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The dried fruit of the plum (1345–46).^[7][3][4]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English verb first meant, of a bird, to trim the feathers with the beak, and of a person, to dress up carefully (late 14th century), senses kept by its variant preen.^[7][4][3] The sense “to cut off what is superfluous” is recorded from the early 15th century,^[4][7] and the gardening sense “to lop branches from a tree” from 1547.^[7][4][3] The noun prune was slang for a disagreeable or stupid person from 1895.^[7][4]

Timeline

• 1345–46 – a dried plum.^[7][3]
• 1390 – verb, of a bird, to trim the feathers.^[7]
• 1426 – verb, to cut down by removing superfluities.^[7]
• 1547 – verb, to lop branches from a tree.^[7][3]
• 1895 – a disagreeable or stupid person.^[7][4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The partially dried fruit of certain kinds of plum.
2. A plum that can be dried without spoiling.
3. (slang) A disagreeable, stupid or incompetent person.

Verb

1. To cut off dead or unwanted branches or parts of (a plant) to improve its shape or growth.
2. To remove as superfluous; to reduce, as in prune the budget.
3. (archaic) To preen.

Word family

• pruner
• prunable
• unpruned

Related words

• plum
• preen
• rotund

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press