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
This understanding of soil diversity enables Wineburg and her team to make more precise viticulture decisions, like adjusting pruning techniques to enhance vascular flow, shaping canopy structure, and managing yields to suit the unique character of each block.
—
Mike Desimone, Robb Report, 21 Sep. 2025
Lawn and garden care service is also available to handle tasks like fertilization, pruning and weed control.
—Liz Ohanesian, Oc Register, 19 Sep. 2025
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
Mike Desimone, Robb Report, 21 Sep. 2025
Lawn and garden care service is also available to handle tasks like fertilization, pruning and weed control.
—Liz Ohanesian, Oc Register, 19 Sep. 2025
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
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pruning
Verb
-
Thankfully, a shelter volunteer, Nikki Miller, took up Chase’s cause, giving him a bath, trimming his nails and shaving his fur to get him back to looking his best again.—
Jack Beresford,
MSNBC Newsweek,
25 Sep. 2025
-
However, the thawing of Russia’s northern coastline has opened a lane for vessels, shaving almost three weeks off shipping times compared to the journey around the Cape of Good Hope.—
Jeronimo Gonzalez,
semafor.com,
24 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
Thankfully, a shelter volunteer, Nikki Miller, took up Chase’s cause, giving him a bath, trimming his nails and shaving his fur to get him back to looking his best again.—
Jack Beresford,
MSNBC Newsweek,
25 Sep. 2025
-
Its trimming rippled in the afternoon wind.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
22 Sep. 2025
Verb
-
Little River Canyon National Preserve introduces visitors to a magnificent gorge that was created by the Little River cutting across the top of Lookout Mountain.—
Tara Massouleh McCay,
Southern Living,
4 Oct. 2025
-
The trial was designed to appeal to cash-conscious customers, who’ve been cutting eating out from their budgets, hurting restaurants’ profits.—
Jordan Valinsky,
CNN Money,
4 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Like NexLawn's upcoming Vidar robo-mowers, the futuristic rover will navigate the garden using LiDAR and vision sensors while clipping the grass.—
New Atlas,
New Atlas,
11 Sep. 2025
-
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
Verb
-
So, while you might be tempted to store the mower after dealing with seasonal tasks like composting annuals and harvesting your garden, remember to keep mowing your grass as needed.—
Megan Hughes,
Better Homes & Gardens,
2 Oct. 2025
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There are actually many reasons for bare patches, from mowing and watering issues to environmental causes.—
Karen Brewer Grossman,
Southern Living,
29 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Pruning.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pruning. Accessed 7 Oct. 2025.
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