winnow
Etymology
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Etymology
From Middle English winewen, windewen, windwen, from Old English windwian, from Proto-West Germanic *windwōn, from Proto-Germanic *windwōną, *winþijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *wē-.
Pronunciation Verbwinnow (winnows, present participle winnowing; simple past and past participle winnowed)
- (transitive, agriculture) To subject (granular material, especially food grain) to a current of air separating heavier and lighter components, as grain from chaff.
- Synonyms: wind
- (transitive, figuratively) To separate, sift, analyse, or test by separating items having different values.
- They winnowed the field to twelve.
- They winnowed the winners from the losers.
- They winnowed the losers from the winners.
- (transitive, literary) To blow upon or toss about by blowing; to set in motion as with a fan or wings.
- 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVIII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC ↗, page 206 ↗:
- The light snow lay on the narrow and winding path before them, pure as if just fresh winnowed by the wind.
- 1872, Elliott Coues, Key to North American Birds:
- Gulls average much larger than terns, with stouter build; the feet are larger and more ambulatorial, the wings are shorter and not so thin; the birds winnow the air in a steady course unlike the buoyant dashing flight of their relatives.
- (intransitive, literary, dated) To move about with a flapping motion, as of wings; to flutter.
- French: vanner
- German: worfeln, windsichten (technical), trennen
- Portuguese: joeirar
- Russian: ве́ять
- Spanish: ahechar, cribar
- French: séparer
- German: trennen, separieren, aussortieren, sichten
- Portuguese: joeirar
- Spanish: separar, cribar, hacer la criba, separar el grano de la paja
winnow (plural winnows)
- That which winnows or which is used in winnowing; a contrivance for fanning or winnowing grain.
- The act of winnowing
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.001
