Briny
//ˈbɹaɪni// adj, noun, slang
adj, noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The sea. figuratively, slang
"[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."
- 2 any very large body of (salt) water wordnet
Adjective
- 1 Of, pertaining to, resembling or containing brine; salty.
"on the briny deep"
Adjective
- 1 slightly salty (especially from containing a mixture of seawater and fresh water) wordnet
Example
More examples"Scientists believe water on Mars would be briny because past landers and rovers, as well as Martian meteorites, have shown that the planet's surface is salty."
Etymology
From brine + -y.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.