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
The hams and the shoulders were put to pickle in brine, for they would be smoked, like the venison, in the hollow log.
From "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
It has clocked up nearly 10,000 hours of pilot-plant operations testing the brines and is about to commission a 170 ton-a-year demonstration plant, he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
"And there are promising lithium-rich brines, like those in California's Salton Sea, where this method simply can't be used at all."
From Science Daily ● May 23, 2026
Rio Tinto aims to reach roughly 200,000 metric tons of capacity by 2028 and reduce C1 costs from its brines assets to less than US$5-US$8/kilogram.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 9, 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
In 1918 potash production was further raised to 52,135 tons, chiefly through the increase of the output from natural brines to 39,255 tons, nearly twice what it was the year before.
From Creative Chemistry Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries by Slosson, Edwin E.
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
In the Sammamish Ballroom, you can choose from a buffet spread including brined turkey breast, prime rib and plenty of sides of desserts.
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
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
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
“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
And pasteurization, pickling or brining all maximize the shelf-life of foods, allowing them to be enjoyed over longer periods of time.
From Salon ● Jul. 27, 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.
