brine
Americannoun
-
brines
plural
-
water saturated or strongly impregnated with salt.
-
a salt and water solution for pickling.
-
the sea or ocean.
-
the water of the sea.
-
Chemistry. any saline solution.
verb (used with object)
-
brines,
present (3rd person singular)
-
brined,
past participle, past
-
brining
present participle
noun
-
a strong solution of salt and water, used for salting and pickling meats, etc
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the sea or its water
-
chem
-
a concentrated solution of sodium chloride in water
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any solution of a salt in water
a potassium chloride brine
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verb
-
Water saturated with or containing large amounts of a salt, especially sodium chloride. The high salt content is usually due to evaporation or freezing.
-
The water of a sea or ocean.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
brinesimple
-
brinessimple
-
have brinedperfect
-
has brinedperfect
-
am briningprogressive
-
are briningprogressive
-
is briningprogressive
-
have been briningperfect progressive
-
has been briningperfect progressive
Past
-
brinedsimple
-
had brinedperfect
-
was briningprogressive
-
were briningprogressive
-
had been briningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of brine
First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English brȳne; cognate with Dutch brijn
Explanation
Water that contains salt is called brine. You can always tell when you are close to the ocean, because you can smell the brine and hear the sea gulls. Brine is also a salty solution used to pickle or preserve foods. If you want to make pickles, you have to soak cucumbers in brine for several days or even weeks before canning them. As a verb, brine means to soak in a salty solution. If you live in the southern United States, you might brine watermelon rind and okra, which may sound strange to someone from Michigan's Upper Peninsula who's more familiar with brining eggs.
Vocabulary lists containing brine
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Savory cocktails have become de rigueur in recent years, and if we’re willing to sip olive or oyster brine, why not try some broth in your drink?
From Slate ● Aug. 10, 2026
"We do not know if these magnesium organic compounds were contributed by brine chemistry or were simply left over from earlier impact shock processes."
From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026
Controlled Thermal Resources wants to extract lithium from hot brine that will be used to power a geothermal electricity plant it plans to build.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2026
“Fish market gone bad, brine and blood. The melon sweetness of curdling bacteria. Urine, too, hot, tacky.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
There was the tang of salt, of sun, of weakened brine, and grit dissolved in the breakers.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
Highly concentrated brines can keep phosphate dissolved in solution and can promote chemical reactions involving organic compounds and minerals that precipitate from solution.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026
Energy companies are viewed as a natural fit for producing lithium, which is sourced by pumping salty brines from underground using similar techniques to oil.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
The kind of pickles you use also matters, as some brines lean more sweeter, while others are saltier.
From Salon ● Aug. 29, 2025
Companies pump salty, lithium-containing brines from underground aquifers into vast, shallow pools and wait for the Sun to evaporate most of the water, concentrating the lithium ions.
From Science Magazine ● Nov. 27, 2024
The water is transparent, but excessively salt; it contains about 22 per cent of common salt, slightly mixed with other salts, and forming one of the purest and most concentrated brines in the world.
From Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 by Barkham Burroughs
The chicken is brought in whole before being butchered and brined in-house.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026
Even when the tomatoes are gone and the bread stall is picked clean, you can usually find some jar of something sharp, spicy and brined: giardiniera, hot peppers, spicy dills, pickled carrots.
From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2026
Eaton uses a carefully sourced heritage breed bird that’s brined, deboned and served in butter for $35.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
At Barking Frog, you can enjoy a three-course meal featuring brined turkey breast, beef tenderloin, seared wild salmon or a vegan veggie potpie as the entree, plus a starter and a dessert.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 15, 2023
Once the meat was soaked, it would be transported to the lower levels to be ground, canned, pickled, brined, extruded into sausage casings, or cut into chops.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
April is notorious for brining a mixed bag of unpredictable weather and this week has been a real example of that.
From BBC ● Apr. 26, 2026
The battery brining liquid is a hazardous waste product too and is trucked to another specialized facility, the agency said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2025
At 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday evening, the roof of Globe Life Field began to open, revealing a partially cloudy sky and brining in some cool spring air with steady winds.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 23, 2024
“We took him out of the game as soon as he was brining it up to the trainers and coaches,” Baldelli said.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 30, 2023
To be honest, there was another reason I chose the brining and grilling method.
From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
