briney

Adjective (1)

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

1. Of, relating to, resembling, or containing brine (“water saturated or strongly impregnated with salt”), such as seawater or tears; salty.
   • on the briny deep

   Antonyms:

   unbriny

2. (figuratively) Of a person: difficult to get along with or to like; acerbic, prickly, unlikable.
   • [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.2026 January 19, Dwight Garner, “A briny Englishman (and Booker Prize winner) says farewell”, in The New York Times Book Review, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived...

Adjective (2)

briny (comparative more briny, superlative most briny)

1. (archaic, obsolete) Especially of the sea: phosphorescent, shining.
   • [S]omevvhat before a tempeſt, if the ſea-vvater bee flaſhed vvith a ſticke or Oare, the ſame caſteth a bright ſhining colour, and the drops thereof reſemble ſparekles of fire, as if the vvaues vvere turned into flames, vvhich the Saylers terms Briny.[1609, Richard Carew, “The First Booke”, in The Survey of Cornwall, London: […] S[imon] S[tafford] for Iohn Iaggard, […], →OCLC, folio 26, verso

See all 4 meanings of briny