briny

From brine + -y.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɹaɪni/
• Rhymes: -aɪni

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

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

1. Of, pertaining to, resembling or containing brine; salty.

   on the briny deep

2. (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.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

• brinily
• brininess
• unbriny

the briny

1. (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

• brini

briny m pl

1. plural of bran (“crow”)