pruning
Americannoun
-
prunings
plural
-
the act or practice of cutting or lopping off undesired twigs, branches, or roots.
Some pruning of your tea roses during the summer is useful to encourage growth and flowers.
-
the act or practice of getting rid of undesirable elements or excess.
You can do this pruning of emails for an hour a day till you're down to an empty inbox.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pruning
First recorded in 1540–50; prun(e) 2 ( def. ) + -ing 1 ( def. )
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:
Is Microsoft laying off 3,200 employees from the Xbox division just a new boss coming in and pruning an overgrown asset, or is it a sign that console gaming is coming to the end?
From Slate ● Jul. 17, 2026
He’s 72 and does much of the farm work himself, pruning, repairing water lines and applying fertilizer.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 19, 2026
They’re pruning good investors who had a down year and keeping mediocre ones who got lucky.
From MarketWatch ● May 12, 2026
Along with competitors, it’s raising bag fees and fares and pruning less-profitable routes to cope with a doubling in jet fuel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026
We spent the day doing the usual: raking leaves, pruning bushes, watering flowers and weeding the lawn.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
Nearby, prunings from a carrotwood tree lay in a parkway.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 18, 2025
If you have ivy in your garden, please landscape responsibly, and dispose of any ivy prunings carefully, as many a ruined landscape began with unscrupulous gardeners discarding yard waste that included bits of ivy.
From New York Times ● Jan. 20, 2017
The Bucket Jockey is an effective but inexpensive way to organize and easily transport your tools with a bucket for holding your prunings.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 30, 2016
The move mirrors similar prunings around the country at other public colleges and universities that are reeling from steep drops in state aid.
From New York Times ● Dec. 5, 2010
The next may contain prunings of the various fruit trees, all about an inch long, or an inch square.
From The Infant System For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, from One to Seven years of Age by Samuel Wilderspin
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.
