Meaning

noun dried plum

verb cultivate, tend, and cut back the growth of

verb weed out unwanted or unnecessary things

originFrom Middle English prunen, prounen, proinen, from Old French proignier (“to trim the feathers with the beak”), earlier prooignier. Likely influenced by Middle French rogner, Old French rooignier (“cut, trim”) (from Latin rotundo?), and possibly by Old French provainier (“provine”) (Latin propaginem? whence French provigner). The relation to the noun is thus unclear.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0