An evergreen coniferous tree with needle-shaped leaves. Aside from their beauty, pine trees are also important sources of timber, tar, pitch, turpentine, Pine-Sol, and those little automobile air fresheners.


When I was a kid, we had a white pine tree dead center in the middle of the backyard. It wasn't large enough to climb on, but my sister and I used to go out during the summer and have picnics under it about once a week. We'd sit on an old blanket underneath its branches, eat grilled cheese sandwiches, and drink grape-flavored Funny Face (that was a Kool-Aid clone back in the '70s -- we preferred it because the packages had funny faces on 'em and the flavors had names like Goofy Grape. That's a primo enticement when you're in kindergarten). We'd watch birds flying in the air and wave at our mother when she looked out at us from the kitchen window. Nothing important happened, but we both loved those picnics and that tree in particular.

When I was in fifth grade, that tree got struck by lightning. It was split in two and burned a little, but the rain kept the fire from getting too strong. My dad harvested what parts of the tree were salvageable, and my uncle carved them into little pine tree medallions. My sister wore hers around her neck for the next four years before she finally put it into her cedar chest.

Since college, we've both taken our medallions out of storage, and they've been hung in places of honor in every house we've lived in. On nice summer days, I'll sometimes hang mine on the porch and sit under it for a half-hour, eating a grilled cheese sandwich and watching birds fly.

I love you like the salt loves the sea
like the roots love their tree
Needing you like breathing air
like honey in my tea
It's not the way you build me up
I already have the world at my feet
falling, begging my acknowledgment
I need you because they need me
And I hope I make it clearly known
this river flowin through my soul
begins in you and ends
in me

The trip I take with you
is one of faith and joy
I feel the rage subside and quiet
when I'm in your lovers coil
Make me lose my head is what you do
And I give it up for free
I beg for you to conquer me
Your quest will never be
forgotten

And I hope I make it clearly known
this river flowin through my soul
begins in you and ends
in me

Pine (?), n. [AS. pin, L. poena penalty. See Pain.]

Woe; torment; pain.

[Obs.] "Pyne of hell."

Chaucer.

 

© Webster 1913.


Pine, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Pined (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Pining.] [AS. pinan to torment, fr. pin torment. See 1st Pine, Pain, n. & v.]

1.

To inflict pain upon; to torment; to torture; to afflict.

[Obs.]

Chaucer. Shak.

That people that pyned him to death. Piers Plowman.

One is pined in prison, another tortured on the rack. Bp. Hall.

2.

To grieve or mourn for.

[R.]

Milton.

 

© Webster 1913.


Pine, v. i.

1.

To suffer; to be afflicted.

[Obs.]

2.

To languish; to lose flesh or wear away, under any distress or anexiety of mind; to droop; -- often used with away.

"The roses wither and the lilies pine."

Tickell.

3.

To languish with desire; to waste away with longing for something; -- usually followed by for.

For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined. Shak.

Syn. -- To languish; droop; flag; wither; decay.

 

© Webster 1913.


Pine, n. [AS. pin, L. pinus.]

1. Bot.

Any tree of the coniferous genus Pinus. See Pinus.

⇒ There are about twenty-eight species in the United States, of which the white pine (P. Strobus), the Georgia pine (P. australis), the red pine (P. resinosa), and the great West Coast sugar pine (P. Lambertiana) are among the most valuable. The Scotch pine or fir, also called Norway or Riga pine (Pinus sylvestris), is the only British species. The nut pine is any pine tree, or species of pine, which bears large edible seeds. See Pinon.

The spruces, firs, larches, and true cedars, though formerly considered pines, are now commonly assigned to other genera.

2.

The wood of the pine tree.

3.

A pineapple.

Ground pine. Bot. See under Ground. -- Norfolk Island pine Bot., a beautiful coniferous tree, the Araucaria excelsa. -- Pine barren, a tract of infertile land which is covered with pines. [Southern U.S.] -- Pine borer Zool., any beetle whose larvae bore into pine trees. -- Pine finch. Zool. See Pinefinch, in the Vocabulary. -- Pine grosbeak Zool., a large grosbeak (Pinicola enucleator), which inhabits the northern parts of both hemispheres. The adult male is more or less tinged with red. -- Pine lizard Zool., a small, very active, mottled gray lizard (Sceloporus undulatus), native of the Middle States; -- called also swift, brown scorpion, and alligator. -- Pine marten. Zool. (a) A European weasel (Mustela martes), called also sweet marten, and yellow-breasted marten. (b) The American sable. See Sable. -- Pine moth Zool., any one of several species of small tortricid moths of the genus Retinia, whose larvae burrow in the ends of the branchlets of pine trees, often doing great damage. -- Pine mouse Zool., an American wild mouse (Arvicola pinetorum), native of the Middle States. It lives in pine forests. -- Pine needle Bot., one of the slender needle-shaped leaves of a pine tree. See Pinus. -- Pine-needle wool. See Pine wool (below). -- Pine oil, an oil resembling turpentine, obtained from fir and pine trees, and used in making varnishes and colors. -- Pine snake Zool., a large harmless North American snake (Pituophis melanoleucus). It is whitish, covered with brown blotches having black margins. Called also bull snake. The Western pine snake (P. Sayi) is chestnut-brown, mottled with black and orange. -- Pine tree Bot., a tree of the genus Pinus; pine. -- Pine-tree money, money coined in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century, and so called from its bearing a figure of a pine tree. -- Pine weevil Zool., any one of numerous species of weevils whose larvae bore in the wood of pine trees. Several species are known in both Europe and America, belonging to the genera Pissodes, Hylobius, etc. -- Pine wool, a fiber obtained from pine needles by steaming them. It is prepared on a large scale in some of the Southern United States, and has many uses in the economic arts; -- called also pine-needle wool, and pine-wood wool.

 

© Webster 1913.

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