as in shaving
to make (something) shorter or smaller with the use of a cutting instrument
pruned the dead branches from the old apple tree
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Recent Examples of pruning
Liberation from time and pruning through mass dishwasher ownership is a dream that remainsonly partly fulfilled.
—
Jeremy Lott, The Washington Examiner, 12 Sep. 2025
Maintaining proper airflow by pruning can be as easy as snapping off a low branch or snipping a growing tip here and there.
—Andy Wilcox, Better Homes & Gardens, 11 Sep. 2025
After the first flush of blooms in spring, pruning can encourage a second wave of blooms.
—Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 11 Sep. 2025
This is typically done using techniques like quantization, which involves using fewer bits to represent a model’s weights, or pruning out connections in the neural network that aren’t contributing much to performance.
—IEEE Spectrum, 3 Sep. 2025
Its food business, which includes Lay’s chips, Quaker, and Rice-A-Roni, is no longer strong enough to paper over its beverage weakness; Elliott suggests some pruning.
—Rohan Goswami, semafor.com, 2 Sep. 2025
Tools like pruning, quantization, and knowledge distillation all reduce model size or speed up inference.
—Ron Schmelzer, Forbes.com, 29 Aug. 2025
Elizabeth tracks Tanner’s alias Derek Ward to the flower shop Thorny Blooms and finds Tanner violently pruning flowers.
—Barry Levitt, Time, 28 Aug. 2025
This easy task is known as thumb pruning and facilitates keeping the bush open to air and sun.
—Rita Perwich, San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 Jan. 2025
Jeremy Lott, The Washington Examiner, 12 Sep. 2025
Maintaining proper airflow by pruning can be as easy as snapping off a low branch or snipping a growing tip here and there.
—Andy Wilcox, Better Homes & Gardens, 11 Sep. 2025
After the first flush of blooms in spring, pruning can encourage a second wave of blooms.
—Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 11 Sep. 2025
This is typically done using techniques like quantization, which involves using fewer bits to represent a model’s weights, or pruning out connections in the neural network that aren’t contributing much to performance.
—IEEE Spectrum, 3 Sep. 2025
Its food business, which includes Lay’s chips, Quaker, and Rice-A-Roni, is no longer strong enough to paper over its beverage weakness; Elliott suggests some pruning.
—Rohan Goswami, semafor.com, 2 Sep. 2025
Tools like pruning, quantization, and knowledge distillation all reduce model size or speed up inference.
—Ron Schmelzer, Forbes.com, 29 Aug. 2025
Elizabeth tracks Tanner’s alias Derek Ward to the flower shop Thorny Blooms and finds Tanner violently pruning flowers.
—Barry Levitt, Time, 28 Aug. 2025
This easy task is known as thumb pruning and facilitates keeping the bush open to air and sun.
—Rita Perwich, San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 Jan. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pruning
Verb
-
Early on the morning of March 16th, Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, posted video footage of Salvadoran agents marching the Venezuelan men into prison and shaving their heads.—
Jonathan Blitzer,
New Yorker,
8 Sep. 2025
-
One analyst suggested that shaving a percentage point off the state’s income tax could cut available revenues by roughly $5 billion.—
State House News Service,
Boston Herald,
4 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
Scott's expertise in embellishment and her ability to execute it in the most chic way prevailed; whether as crystal beading on the cape-style lapel of a jacket, a delicate fur-like fringe in neon green flanking a black dress, or a tubular velvet rope trimming the edges of tank-style pieces.—
Roxanne Robinson,
Forbes.com,
16 Sep. 2025
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Something as simple as trimming nails or cutting hair also takes on new challenges, as without gravity, every tiny clipping would drift around, potentially clogging equipment or entering astronauts' eyes or lungs.—
Kenna Hughes-Castleberry,
Space.com,
16 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
Spend some time worrying about that thing that’s actually quite meaningless, getting mad at that person cutting me off in traffic?—
Matthew Carey,
Deadline,
13 Sep. 2025
-
Marinaccio is cutting it Marinaccio made his big-league debut with the Yankees in 2022 and between June and July of that did not allow a hit to 57 consecutive batters.—
Kevin Acee,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
13 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Its audio comes through clean and detail-rich, with noise cancelling and automatic limiting to handle background chaos without clipping your voice.—
Juhi Wadia,
PC Magazine,
9 Sep. 2025
-
Crews will complete work on the Riverfront Extension Project that requires a shutdown, like clipping wires and placing the overhead guide wire between Second and Third streets.—
Noelle Alviz-Gransee,
Kansas City Star,
8 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Even a person mowing their lawn on a windy day might send embers into the air.—
Bloomberg,
Mercury News,
5 Sep. 2025
-
Even though the weather is much more tolerable than in the hot summer months, once that fall feeling arrives, the end of mowing the grass for the year is in sight.—
Karen Brewer Grossman,
Southern Living,
2 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Pruning.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pruning. Accessed 17 Sep. 2025.
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