Winnow
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 That which winnows or which is used in winnowing; a contrivance for fanning or winnowing grain.
- 2 the act of separating grain from chaff wordnet
- 3 The act of winnowing
- 1 To subject (granular material, especially food grain) to a current of air separating heavier and lighter components, as grain from chaff. transitive
"[W]ind began to winnow the river delta's dried sediments."
- 2 blow away or off with a current of air wordnet
- 3 To separate, sift, analyse, or test by separating items having different values. figuratively, transitive
"They winnowed the field to twelve."
- 4 select desirable parts from a group or list wordnet
- 5 To blow upon or toss about by blowing; to set in motion as with a fan or wings. literary, transitive
"The light snow lay on the narrow and winding path before them, pure as if just fresh winnowed by the wind."
Show 3 more definitions
- 6 separate the chaff from grain by using air currents wordnet
- 7 To move about with a flapping motion, as of wings; to flutter. dated, intransitive, literary
- 8 blow on wordnet
Example
More examples"I can play well on the pipe, I can prune vines, I can dig, I can plant, I can plough, and I can winnow."
Etymology
From Middle English wyndwen, from Old English windwian (“to winnow, fan, ventilate”), from Proto-West Germanic *windwōn, from Proto-Germanic *windwōną, *winþijaną (“to throw about, winnow”), from Proto-Indo-European *wē- (“to winnow, thresh”). Cognate with West Frisian wynje (“to winnow”), dialectal Dutch winden, winnen (“to winnow”), Middle High German winden (“to winnow”), Icelandic vinsa (“to pick out, weed”), Latin vannus (“a winnowing basket”). See fan, van.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.