a large seine, for use generally by two boats, that is drawn around a school of fish and then closed at the bottom by means of a line passing through rings attached along the lower edge of the net.
a technique of fishing that utilizes a purse seine to capture large schools of fish, especially tuna.
An Americanism dating back to 1865–70
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Many birds drown in purse seine nets each year.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2025
Their wiggling catch arrives alive, not smushed as in a purse seine, or ripped and bleeding from a gill net.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 15, 2024
Sanfilippo moved smoothly through an introduction that touched on the various types of trawling - pair, midwater, purse seine, otter and gillnetting - and the basic terminology of net mending.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 17, 2019
But purse seine boats, like the one where these Cambodians work, are common too.
From New York Times ● Jul. 27, 2015
The gill-netters hung on the seiner's heels, because where the purse seine could get a haul so could they.
From Poor Man's Rock by Johnson, Frank Tenney
These fisheries rely on purse-seine nets, a method that captures schooling fish by encircling them with a large wall of netting.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 17, 2025
To get an idea of how plentiful the pinks are, one just has to look at the purse-seine commercial net-test fishery off the southeast side of Vancouver Island known as “Area 20.”
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 29, 2013
In effect, the PNA used its fishing licenses to create the world's largest sustainable purse-seine fishery.
From Slate ● Apr. 2, 2013
The fisheries commission gave the PNA a major victory, closing two of the four high-seas pockets to purse-seine vessels and making the PNA's regulatory sleight of hand the law of the sea.
From Slate ● Apr. 2, 2013
The rules which permitted none but a cannery owner to hold a purse-seine license and denied all other men that privilege were changed.
From Poor Man's Rock by Johnson, Frank Tenney
Mexican purse-seining pressure increased, due to high wholesale market prices.
From Time Magazine Archive
The ancient cannery monopoly of purse-seining rights on given territory was broken into fine large fragments.
From Poor Man's Rock by Johnson, Frank Tenney
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.
