brine
Americannoun
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water saturated or strongly impregnated with salt.
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a salt and water solution for pickling.
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the sea or ocean.
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the water of the sea.
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Chemistry. any saline solution.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a strong solution of salt and water, used for salting and pickling meats, etc
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the sea or its water
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chem
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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
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Water saturated with or containing large amounts of a salt, especially sodium chloride. The high salt content is usually due to evaporation or freezing.
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The water of a sea or ocean.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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brinesimple
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brinessimple
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have brinedperfect
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has brinedperfect
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am briningprogressive
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are briningprogressive
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is briningprogressive
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have been briningperfect progressive
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has been briningperfect progressive
Past
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brinedsimple
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had brinedperfect
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was briningprogressive
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were briningprogressive
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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:
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
Smaller briskets take three to four days to brine, while larger cuts can take one week.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
The reserve has experienced 16 major equipment failures since 2013, including of raw water and brine disposal piping.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 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
His drink swirls with blue sparkles in a cloudy orange brine.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
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
Electroflow Technologies, a startup that aims to make it cheaper and easier to extract lithium from brines, has raised $10 million in venture funding to support larger trials of its process.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2025
But he notes that this initial lab-based demonstration works with a synthetic brine that differs from the chemically complex brines in the real world.
From Science Magazine ● Nov. 27, 2024
That being said, sweet tea-based brines aren’t just reserved for making fried chicken.
From Salon ● Apr. 1, 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 Burroughs, Barkham
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
And then there are the newer versions — birds brined in buttermilk or their skins lacquered to glossy, bronzed perfection.
From Salon ● May 9, 2025
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
After Kim purchased an unglazed onggi from his hometown on Jeju Island, South Korea, he and Hu measured carbon dioxide levels as brined cabbage fermented in both the onggi and a tightly sealed glass jar.
From Scientific American ● May 16, 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
If the batteries are too damaged for that to be done, crews will discharge them through brining, during which they are submerged in a water-and-salt solution.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2025
They'll be brining you your cocktails to drink and your food, which you'll look at.
From BBC ● Jan. 5, 2025
“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
“I think I’m able to connect to a lot of different genres of people just me being who I am and brining my personality to the air,” he said.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 18, 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.
