Forms: 1 bryne, 3–4 brin, 4 briyn, 4–7 bryne, 6 bryn, (7 broyn), 4– brine. [OE. brýne, bríne, corresp. to MDu. brîne fem., Du. brijn neuter, also Flem. brijne, brēne fem. Ulterior history unknown.]
1. Water saturated, or strongly impregnated, with salt; salt water.
a. 1000. Ælfric, Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 128. Salsugo, muria, bryne.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 6348. Siþen þai faand … Water bitter sum ani brin [v.r. brine, bryne].
1382. Wyclif, Jer. xvii. 6. The lond of briyn [1388 saltness].
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., III. 39. Olde bryne atte tree and vyne a feest is.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 51. Bryne of salt, salsugo.
1544. Phaër, Regim. Lyfe (1560), X ij b. Take a good quantity of bryn which is made of water and salt.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, V. xxi. 578. They keepe and preserue the leaues … in brine or pickle.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 790. Broyn, when it is salt enough, will bear an Egg.
1657. W. Fenner, 2nd Pt. Christ’s Alarm, 28. God hath been laying rods in brine for thee.
1669. Phil. Trans., IV. 1063. Six Tuns of Brine yield one tun of Salt.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v., There is sand found in all the Staffordshire brines after coction.
a. 1848. Marryat, R. Reefer, ix. Those were the times of large schools, rods steeped in brine (actual fact).
2. The water of the sea; the sea. (Chiefly poet.)
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. iii. (1641), 22/1. Such is the German Sea … and such th’ Arabian Brine.
1610. Shaks., Temp., I. ii. 211. All but Mariners Plung’d in the foaming bryne.
1637. Milton, Lycidas, 95. On the level brine Sleek Panope with all her sisters played.
1738. C. Wesley, Psalms (1765), cxlvii. While Monsters … lash the roaming Brine.
1805. Wordsw., Waggoner, III. 85. The unluckiest hulk that stems the brine.
1841. Longf., Ballad Fr. Fleet, vii. The great ships … sank like lead in the brine.
3. = Briny tears. poet.
1592. Shaks., Rom. & Jul., II. iii. 69. Iesu Maria, what a deale of brine Hath washt thy sallow cheekes for Rosaline? Ibid. (1593), Lucr., 796. Seasoning the earth with showres of siluer brine.
1604. Dekker, Honest Wh., Wks. 1873, II. 115. I should be well seasoned, for mine eyes lye in brine.
4. Attrib. and Comb. a. General, as brine-bath, -house, -pit, -spring, -tub, -water, -well; brine-bound, -dripping, -soaked, adjs.
1588. Shaks., Tit. A., III. i. 129. And made a brine pit with our bitter teares.
1648. Herrick, Hesper., Gt. Boast. Look in his brine-tub, and you shall find there Two stiff blew pigs-feet.
c. 1682. J. Collins, Making of Salt, 20. It is called a Brine-House, to retain store for Winter Boyling.
1774. Johnson, in Boswell (1831), III. 130. I tasted the brine water, which contains much more salt than the sea water.
1817. Parl. Deb., 740. Supposed to be not a common brine spring.
1841. Penny Cycl., XX. 368/2. The Cheshire brine-springs are from twenty to forty yards in depth.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 317. The salt which was obtained by a rude process from brine pits.
1855. Singleton, Virgil, I. 233. Brine-dripping limbs.
1860. Piesse, Lab. Chem. Wonders, 33. In Cheshire there are salt beds: these produce … brine wells.
1861. Collier, Hist. Eng. Lit., 419. His brine-soaked coat.
1866. Howells, Venet. Life, xii. 179. Brine-bound Venice.
b. Special comb.: brine-evaporator, an apparatus for evaporating brine so as to deposit the salt; brine-gauge, a salinometer or salt-gauge; brine-man, one who superintends the making of brine; brine-pan, a shallow iron vessel in which brine is evaporated; also, a shallow pit, or basin, in which brine is evaporated by the action of the sun; brine-pump, a pump used for removing the brine that collects at the bottom of a steamer’s boilers; brine-seeth, a salt boilery; brine-shrimp (see quot.); brine-smeller, one who examines a district with a view to the discovery of beds of salt; brine-valve, a valve in a boiler that is opened to allow the escape of water saturated with salt; brine-worm = brine-shrimp.
c. 1682. J. Collins, Making of Salt, 30. A skilful *Brineman will govern and direct 3 or 4 Labourers. Ibid., 19. Before it be transmitted into the shallow *Brine-Pans.
1732. De Foe, etc., Tour Gt. Brit. (1769), 395. Middlewich … noted for making Salt, where are two excellent *Brine-seeths.
1836. Penny Cycl., V. 343/1. The Brine-worm or *Brine-shrimp, Cancer Salinus of Linnæus … is about half an inch in length.
1860. Gosse, Rom. Nat. Hist., 74. At Lymington in Hampshire, the reservoirs of concentrated brine are always peopled by … a sort of shrimp … commonly known as the *brine shrimp.
1878. F. Williams, Midl. Railw., 558. A *‘brine smeller’ … expressed his belief that mines might be opened.
