prune

Etymology 1

From Middle English prune, from Old French prune, from Vulgar Latin *prūna, feminine singular formed from the neutral plural of Latin prūnum, from Ancient Greek προῦνον (proûnon), variant of προῦμνον (proûmnon, “plum”), a loanword from a language of Asia Minor. Doublet of plum.

noun

1. (obsolete) A plum.
2. The dried, wrinkled fruit of certain species of plum.
3. (figurative) Something wrinkly like a prune.
   We are not free when we are in the grip of the false conditioning that decrees that we need sex. We are not free if we believe the culture's ominous warnings that we will become "horny" (what a callous, offensive word) and frustrated and neurotic and finally shrivel up into prunes and have to abandon hope of being good, creative, effective people. 1970, Dana Densmore, “Without You And Within You”, in No More Fun & Games, volume 4, page 55
4. (slang) An old woman, especially a wrinkly one.

verb

1. (intransitive, informal) To become wrinkled like a dried plum, as the fingers and toes do when kept submerged in water.
   I hardly left that spot in my pool that month even when my fingers pruned and chlorine dried out my skin. 2005, Alycia Ripley, Traveling with an Eggplant, page 111

Etymology 2

From Old French proignier (“to trim the feathers with the beak”), earlier prooignier, ultimately from Latin pro- ("front") + rotundus (“round”) 'to round-off the front'.

verb

1. (transitive, horticulture) To remove excess material from a tree or shrub; to trim, especially to make more healthy or productive.
   A good grape grower will prune the vines once a year.
2. (transitive, figurative) To cut down or shorten (by the removal of unnecessary material).
   to prune a budget, or an essay
3. (transitive, computer science) To remove unnecessary branches from a tree data structure.
4. (obsolete) To preen; to prepare; to dress.