Definition
nounSalt water; water saturated or strongly impregnated with salt; a salt-and-water solution for pickling.
nounThe sea or ocean; the water of the sea.
Sentence Examples
The olives are subsequently placed in brine.
Do you want a can of tuna in oil or in brine?
Word Origin & History
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).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Philander went into the next room[…]and came back with a salt mackerel that dripped brine like a rainstorm. Then he put the coffee pot on the stove and rummaged out a loaf of dry bread and some hardtack."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
"Ariell: Not a ſoule
But felt a Feauer of the madde, and plaid
Some tricks of deſperation ; all but Mariners
Plung'd in the foaming bryne, and quit the veſſell ;
Then all a fire with me the Kings ſonne Ferdinand
With haire vp-ſtaring (then like reeds, not haire)
Was the firſt man that leapt ; cride hell is empty,
And all the Diuels are heere."
— 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 3:
""Ho, aboard the Salt Junk Sarah,
Rollin" home across the line,
The Bo'sun collared the Captain's hat
And threw it in the brine."
— 1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 52: