prune

About 0.72 uses per million words.

Meaning

1. noun A plum.
2. noun The dried, wrinkled fruit of certain species of plum.
3. noun Something wrinkly like a prune.
4. noun An old woman, especially a wrinkly one.
5. verb To become wrinkled like a dried plum, as the fingers and toes do when kept submerged in water.
6. verb 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.

7. verb To cut down or shorten (by the removal of unnecessary material).

   to prune a budget, or an essay

8. verb To remove (something unnecessary) for the sake of cutting down or shortening that which it was previously part of.

Similar words

crop cut dress snip lop clip trim cut back rationalize plum

Often followed by

the juice and belly it them in out back

Word family

pruned pruner pruners prunes pruning