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''pine'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260822002005-00-⌔

pine - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

pine (countable and uncountable, plural pines)

  • (countable, uncountable) Any coniferous tree of the genus Pinus.
    • ✤ Synonyms: pine tree, pinus
    • ✤ The northern slopes were covered mainly in pine.
    • ✤ I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal’lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.1
    • ✤ Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind.2
    • ✤ Among the pines grew rowans hung with scarlet berries, and bilberry bushes whose leaves would be fair game for white moth caterpillars in spring. […] The increased vegetation also provides food for the pine martens, red squirrels and mountain hares that MacDonell is seeing in rising numbers, while the population of endangered birds such as crossbills and crested tits has also risen.3
  • (countable) Any tree (usually coniferous) which resembles a member of this genus in some respect.
  • (uncountable) The wood of this tree.
    • ✤ Synonym: pinewood
    • ✤ Give disease, so the swine will marry and propagate lies/Tough luck for elected officials, the beast you see got 50 eyes/Bring it on home, spread the wealth/Play it cool, the hand’s been dealt/Now all the odds are in our favor/Save the victory speeches for later/Streets on fire/The mob goes wild, wild, wild/Streets on fire/The mob goes wild/21 guns, box made of pine/Letter from the government, sealed and signed/Delivered Federal Express/On your mother’s doorsteps4
  • (archaic except Caribbean, Guyana, South Africa, Australia) A pineapple.
    • ✤ ”[…] I bought a pine-apple at the same time, which I gave to Sambo. Let’s have it for tiffin; very cool and nice this hot weather.” Rebecca said she had never tasted a pine, and longed beyond everything to taste one.5
    • ✤ Linda carried the oysters in one hand and the pineapple in the other. […] [S]he put the bottle of oysters and the pine on a little carved chair.6
  • (sports, uncountable, colloquial) The bench, where players sit when not playing.
    • ✤ […] rather than languish on the pine in Miami.7
    • ✤ Take off your gear and hit the pine. And don’t take your time. You understand me, boy?8
  • (uncountable, colloquial) A counter or bartop.
    • ✤ I’ll be behind the pine slinging your favorite cold ones, so come and see me!

Noun

pine (plural pines)

  • (archaic) A painful longing.

Verb

pine (third-person singular simple present pines, present participle pining, simple past and past participle pined)

  • (intransitive) To languish; to lose flesh or wear away through distress.
    • ✤ Synonyms: languish, droop
    • ✤ Why pine not I, and die in this distress?9
    • ✤ [T]hou mayſt know/What miſerie th’inabſtinence of Eve/Shall bring on men. Immediately a place/Before his eyes appeard, ſad, noyſom, dark,/A Lazar-houſe it ſeemd, wherein were laid/Numbers all diſeas’d, […]/[…]/Dæmoniac Phrenzie, moaping Melancholie/And Moon-ſtruck madneſs, pining Atrophie,/Maraſmus and wide-waſting Peſtilence.10
    • ✤ This night shall see the gaudy wreath decline, The roses wither and the lilies pine.11
    • ✤ Long lay the world in sin and error pining/Till He appear’d and the soul felt its worth12
    • ✤ The way the story went was that the man’s foot healed up all right but that he just pined away.13
    • ✤ Before I pine away (Pine away)14
  • (intransitive) To long, to yearn so much that it causes suffering.
    • ✤ Synonyms: long, yearn
    • ✤ Laura was pining for Bill all the time he was gone.
    • ✤ Praline: “That parrot is definitely deceased. And when I bought it not half an hour ago you assured me that its lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out after a long squawk.”
      Shopkeeper: “It’s probably pining for the fiords.”
      Praline: “Pining for the fiords, what kind of talk is that?”      15
    • ✤ Ten years ago, liberals pined for a post-religious right, a different culture war. Be careful what you wish for.16
    • ✤ Of the group, Max (Room ’s Jacob Tremblay) is the most nominally mature, at least biologically speaking; unlike his childhood companions, he’s entered the early throes of puberty, and spends a lot of his waking hours pining, rather chastely, for a classmate (Millie Davis).17
  • (transitive) To grieve or mourn for.
    • ✤ Synonyms: bewail, lament; see also Thesaurus: lament
  • (transitive) To inflict pain upon; to torment.
    • ✤ Synonyms: afflict, torment, torture; see also Thesaurus: hurt
    • ✤ Which way, O Lord, which way can I look, and not see some sad examples of misery? […] [O]ne is pined in prison; another, tortured on the rack; a third, languisheth under the loss of a dear son, or wife, or husband.18

Pronunciation

  • (UK, General American) IPA: /paɪn/
  • Audio (Australia): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -aɪn

Etymology 1

🖼️ ➺

From Middle English pyne, from Old English ﹡pīne, from Proto-West Germanic ﹡pīnā, from Latin pīnus, see there for more. Doublet of pinus. Possibly related to fat.

Etymology 2

From Middle English pyne, pine, probably from Old English ﹡pīne (“pain”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡pīnā (“pain, torment, torture”), possibly from Latin poena (“punishment”), from Ancient Greek ποινή (poinḗ, “penalty, fine, bloodmoney”). Cognate to pain.

Entered Germanic with Christianity; cognate to Middle Dutch pinen, Old High German pīnōn, Old Norse pína.19

Etymology 3

From Middle English pynen, from Old English pīnian (“to torment”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡pīnōn, from Proto-West Germanic ﹡pīnā (“pain, torment, torture”), from the noun (see above). Cognate with German peinigen (“to torment, torture”), Icelandic pína (“to torment”).

Printed 2026-08-22.

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Footnotes

  1. 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC: ↩

  2. 1963, Margery Allingham, “Miss Thyrza’s Chair”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 41: ↩

  3. 2020 February 25, Christopher de Bellaigue, “The end of farming?”, in The Guardian ‎, archived from the original on 6 January 2026: ↩

  4. 2004, “The Mob Goes Wild”, in Blast Tyrant (Stoner Rock; Hard Rock), performed by Clutch: ↩

  5. 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC: ↩

  6. 1918 June, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Prelude”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, chapter 7, pages 38–39: ↩

  7. 2013, Sam Zygner, The Forgotten Marlins, page 287: ↩

  8. 2019, Martin Copeland, The Boys from Dogtown: ↩

  9. c. 1589–1590 (date written), Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published 1633, →OCLC, Act I: ↩

  10. 1674, John Milton, “Book XI”, in Paradise Lost. […], 2nd edition, London: […] S[amuel] Simmons […], →OCLC, pages 299–300: ↩

  11. 170?, Thomas Tickell, To a Lady; With a Present of Flowers: ↩

  12. 1855, John Sullivan Dwight (translator), “Oh Holy Night”, as printed in 1871, Adolphe-Charles Adam (music), “Cantique de Noël”, G. Schirmer (New York), originally by Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure, 1847 ↩

  13. 1994, Walter Dean Myers, The Glory Field ‎, →ISBN, page 29: ↩

  14. 2001 May 15, Tool, “Reflection” (track 11), in Lateralus ‎: ↩

  15. 1969 December 7, Monty Python, “Full Frontal Nudity, Dead Parrot sketch”, in Monty Python’s Flying Circus, spoken by shopkeeper and Mr Praline (Michael Palin and John Cleese): ↩

  16. 2016 August 14, Ross Douthat, “A Playboy for President”, in The New York Times ‎: ↩

  17. 2019 August 14, A. A. Dowd, “Good Boys Puts a Tween Spin on the R-rated Teen Comedy, to Mostly Funny Effect”, in The A.V. Club ‎, archived from the original on 4 March 2021: ↩

  18. 1648, Joseph Hall, “The Breathings of the Devout Soul”, in Josiah Pratt, editor, The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, Joseph Hall, D.D. […], volume VI (Devotional Works), London: […] C[harles] Whittingham, […]; for Williams and Smith, […], published 1808, →OCLC, page 325: ↩

  19. Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “pine”, in Online Etymology Dictionary. ↩

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