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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

brine.

Salt water; water saturated or strongly impregnated with salt; a salt-and-water solution for pickling.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈbɹaɪ̯n/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbɹaːn//ˈbɹɑ̟ɪ̯n/Australia, New-Zealand/ˈbɹɒ̈ɪ̯n/Australia, New-Zealand

  1. Salt water; water saturated or strongly impregnated with salt; a salt-and-water solution for pickling.

    uncountable · usually
    Do you want a can of tuna in oil or in brine?

  2. The sea or ocean; the water of the sea.

    uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

From Middle English brine, bryne, from Old English brīne, from Proto-West Germanic *brīnā, from Proto-Germanic *brīnǭ (“salt water, brine”) (compare Scots brime, West Frisian brein, Dutch brijn (“brine”), West Flemish brijne), of unknown ultimate origin, but probably from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreyH- (“to cut, maim”). Cognates include Old Irish ro·bria (“may hurt, damage”), Latin friāre (“to rub, crumble”), Slovene bríti (“to shave, shear”), Albanian brej (“to gnaw”), Sanskrit बृणाति (bṛṇā́ti, “they injure, hurt”). Alternatively, from Proto-Indo-European *mriHnós, from *móri (compare Latin marīnus).

verb/ˈbɹaɪ̯n/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbɹaːn//ˈbɹɑ̟ɪ̯n/Australia, New-Zealand/ˈbɹɒ̈ɪ̯n/Australia, New-Zealand

  1. To preserve food in a salt solution.

    transitive

  2. To prepare and flavor food (especially meat) for cooking by soaking in a salt solution.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English brine, bryne, from Old English brīne, from Proto-West Germanic *brīnā, from Proto-Germanic *brīnǭ (“salt water, brine”) (compare Scots brime, West Frisian brein, Dutch brijn (“brine”), West Flemish brijne), of unknown ultimate origin, but probably from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreyH- (“to cut, maim”). Cognates include Old Irish ro·bria (“may hurt, damage”), Latin friāre (“to rub, crumble”), Slovene bríti (“to shave, shear”), Albanian brej (“to gnaw”), Sanskrit बृणाति (bṛṇā́ti, “they injure, hurt”). Alternatively, from Proto-Indo-European *mriHnós, from *móri (compare Latin marīnus).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.