• IPA: /pɹuːn/

prune (plural prunes)

1. (obsolete) A plum.
2. The dried, wrinkled fruit of certain species of plum.

   hypo en

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

prune (prunes, present participle pruning; past and past participle pruned)

1. (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.

• see Thesaurus:old woman

• French: pruneau
• German: Backpflaume, Trockenpflaume
• Italian: prugna secca
• Portuguese: ameixa seca
• Russian: черносли́в
• Spanish: ciruela pasa

• Portuguese: maracujá de gaveta

prune (prunes, present participle pruning; 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.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 4”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     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

   • 1605, Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning

     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.
   • 1611 April (first recorded performance)​, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act V, scene iv]:

     Hang him; he'll be made an example.

   • 1676, 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.

• French: élaguer, émonder, tailler
• German: ausschneiden, schneiden
• Italian: potare, ridurre, sfoltire
• Portuguese: podar
• Russian: прореживать
• Spanish: podar, sarper, pampinar

• German: beschneiden
• Italian: accorciare, ridurre
• Portuguese: podar
• Spanish: podar