WINNOW • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Winnow

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/wˈɪnˌoʊ/ Listen

verb

Winnow v. t. (past & past part. winnowed; pres. part. winnowing)

To separate, and drive off, the chaff from by means of wind; to fan; as, to winnow grain. "Ho winnoweth barley to-night in the threshing floor."

To sift, as for the purpose of separating falsehood from truth; to separate, as bad from good. "Winnow well this thought, and you shall find This light as chaff that flies before the wind."

To beat with wings, or as with wings.(Poetic) "Now on the polar winds; then with quick fan Winnows the buxom air."

Winnow v. i. To separate chaff from grain. "Winnow not with every wind."

See images of 'Winnow'

Etymology of 'Winnow'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Winnow" Quotes from Famous Books

... sit by a silent stream, Watching water-lilies dream: While breezes winnow The floating seeds, And the aery minnow Weaves his wavy web ...

— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice

... small. He fastened these together with thread, moulded them in with wax, and so fashioned two great wings like those of a bird. When they were done, Daedalus fitted them to his own shoulders, and after one or two efforts, he found that by waving his arms he could winnow the air and cleave it, as a swimmer does the sea. He held himself aloft, wavered this way and that with the wind, and at last, like a great fledgling, ...

— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody

... East and from the West, That's subject to no academic rule; You may find it in the jeering of a jest, Or distil it from the folly of a fool. I can teach you with a quip, if I've a mind; I can trick you into learning with a laugh; Oh, winnow all my folly, and you'll find A grain or two ...

— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... nature of the deposits laid offshore. The waste swept in by streams contains much feldspar and other minerals softer and more soluble than quartz, and where the waves have little opportunity to wear and winnow it, it comes to rest in beds of sandstone in which grains of feldspar and other soft minerals are abundant. Such feldspathic sandstones ...

— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... idly dreaming it would grow spontaneous crops forever,—find it now in a too questionable state; peremptorily requiring real labor and agriculture again. Real "agriculture" is not pleasant; much pleasanter to reap and winnow (with ballot-box or ...

— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

More quotes...