briny - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Proto-Indo-European *-kos

Proto-West Germanic *-g

Old English -iġ

Middle English -y

English -y

English briny

From brine + -y.

briny (comparative brinier or more briny, superlative briniest or most briny)

Of, pertaining to, resembling or containing brine; salty.
on the briny deep
(figurative) Acerbic; unsentimental.
- 2026 January 19, Dwight Garner, “A Briny Englishman (and Booker Prize Winner) Says Farewell”, in The New York Times Book Review‎[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
  [Julian] Barnes wrote “Nothing to Be Frightened Of” when he was 62. He just turned 80. This briny English writer, author of “Flaubert’s Parrot” (1984) and a winner of the Booker Prize, for “The Sense of an Ending” (2011), now has a rare form of blood cancer, treatable but exhausting and uncurable.

salty

the briny

(slang) The sea.
- 1923, Ernest Bramah, The Eyes of Max Carrados:
  That afternoon Mr Slater had been for what he termed "a blow of the briny," as his custom was on a fine day. He was returning in the dusk and had crossed the spacious promenade when, at a corner, he almost ran into the broad figure of a policeman who stood talking to a woman on the path.
- 1978, Elvis Costello, “Crawling To The U.S.A.”, performed by Elvis Costello & The Attractions:
  I thought I would go to the sea and shrink down very tiny / And slide inside the telephone wire that runs under the briny

briny m pl