Welcome to part 2 of the series. Part 1 can be found here.
If you guessed right, pruning is the target word for this post!
Pruning. The moment I encounter this word, I will immediately link it to do with trimming branches from plants in order for them to grow well. I think this is the first time that I see prune being used together with eyebrows.
In order to check whether prune could possibly apply to trimming of eyebrows, I did a search on the OED and also on Google. The matching sense of the verb prune used in this context is probably
prune, v.
2. fig. and in extended use.
a. trans. To cut back, trim, or reduce (anything); to remove something from (a person or thing); esp. to remove (something superfluous or undesirable); to rid of unnecessary or unwanted elements.
b. trans. To excise or remove (anything superfluous or undesirable). Also with away, off, and out.
If too much hair above the eye is a cause for worry and something apparently undesirable, then it seems alright to say pruning eyebrows since one is removing hair which one considers is in excess and is unnecessary.
And next, the results on Google seem to indicate that pruning of brows is something which is in real use by people.
All these health and beauty sites seem to be happily using the verb prune together with eyebrows. From the evidence so far, the usage of prune in this context seems legitimate. Plus, judging from the search results on Google, prune could very well be part of the lexis of beauty care or something related.
Though the usage of prune here is not something which is different, it changed my understanding of the word. Now I know that prune can also be primed to mean trimming of brows, in this case. I have learned something new indeed.
Stay tuned for the next part in the series!
No comments:
Post a Comment