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Glean vs Cull - What's the difference?

glean | cull |

As verbs the difference between glean and cull

is that glean is to collect (grain, grapes, etc.) left behind after the main harvest or gathering while cull is to pick or take someone or something (from a larger group).

As nouns the difference between glean and cull

is that glean is a collection made by gleaning while cull is a selection.

glean

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) , from (etyl).

Verb

(en verb)
  • To collect (grain, grapes, etc.) left behind after the main harvest or gathering.
  • * , Ruth 2:2,
    • Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace.
  • * Shakespeare
    • To glean the broken ears after the man / That the main harvest reaps.
  • To gather what is left in (a field or vineyard).
    • to glean a field
  • To gather information in small amounts, with implied difficulty, bit by bit.
  • * John Locke
    • content to glean what we can from experiments
  • * 8 December 2011 , BBC News, Iran shows film of captured US drone , available in http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16098562 :
    • He said Iran was "well aware of what priceless technological information" could be gleaned from the aircraft.
  • To frugally accumulate resources from low-yield contexts.
    • He gleaned a living from newspaper work for a few months, but in the summer went to a fishing village […] where […] he wrote his great historical drama, "Master Olof." (Translators Edith and Warner Oland on author .)
    Synonyms
    * (gather information) learn

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A collection made by gleaning.
  • * Dryden
    • The gleans of yellow thyme distend his thighs.

    Etymology 2

    Noun

  • (obsolete) cleaning; afterbirth
    • (Holland)
    (Webster 1913)

    Anagrams

    * * * *

    cull

    English

    (Culling)

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To pick or take someone or something (from a larger group).
  • * 1984', cover star: JOE DALLESANDRO '''culled from Andy Warhol's FLESH — anonymous; ''sleeve notes from ' eponymous album
  • To gather, collect.
  • * Tennyson
    • whitest honey in fairy gardens culled
  • * 1977 , , Penguin Classics, p. 202:
    • Chaucer's prose Tale of Melibee is a dialectal homily of moral debate, exhibiting a learned store of ethical precept culled from many ancient authorities.
  • To select animals from a group and then kill them in order to reduce the numbers of the group in a controlled manner.
  • (nonstandard, euphemistic) To kill (animals etc).
  • To lay off in order to reduce the size of, get rid of.

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • A selection.
  • An organised killing of selected animals.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-12-21
    • , author=Isobel Montgomery , title=A year that showed the best and worst of Britain , volume=188, issue=2, page=31 , date=2012-12-18 , magazine= citation , passage=It seemed that the sun shone and all was right in our Blakean islands until the government began to set in motion its promised cull of badgers in an effort to control bovine TB. Salvation for brock came in the form of an online petition started by Queen guitarist Brian May, the rising costs of the programme and the weather.}}
  • A piece unfit for inclusion within a larger group; an inferior specimen.

    • Etymology 2

    Perhaps an abbreviation of (cully).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (slang, dialectal) A fool, gullible person; a dupe.
  • * 1749 , Henry Fielding, Tom Jones , Folio Society 1973, p. 307:
    • Follow but my counsel, and I will show you a way to empty the pocket of a queer cull without any danger of the nubbing cheat.
    Synonyms
    * See also ----