Thresh

//θɹɛʃ// verb

verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To separate the grain from the straw or husks (chaff) by mechanical beating, with a flail or machinery, or by driving animals over them. transitive
  2. 2
    give a thrashing to; beat hard wordnet
  3. 3
    To beat soundly, usually with some tool such as a stick or whip; to drub. literary, transitive
  4. 4
    beat the seeds out of a grain wordnet
  5. 5
    To violently toss the limbs about. intransitive, literary

    "The jay fell all lopsidedly and threshing, as though it were having a fit. The ground killed it."

Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    move or stir about violently wordnet
  2. 7
    move like a flail; thresh about wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
thrashflailthrashbangbastebatter

Example

More examples

"If ploughing were a matter of gazing, anyone could thresh wheat."

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *terh₁-der.? Proto-Germanic *þreskaną Old English þrescan Middle English threschen English thresh From Middle English thresshen, threshen, threschen, from Old English þrescan, from Proto-Germanic *þreskaną. Compare West Frisian terskje, Dutch dorsen, Low German dörschen, German dreschen, Danish tærske, Swedish tröska, Yiddish דרעשן (dreshn). Doublet of thrash.

Related phrases

thresh outthreshing sledge

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.