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Winnow Has Old English Roots
As one Bob Dylan song goes, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” In fact, all you need to do is hold up a dandelion puff the next time there’s a breeze blowing, and watch the wind winnow the silver-white seeds from the rest of the head. Winnow and wind are both ancient words in English, and both share an ancestor with the Latin word for wind, ventus. Winnow first applied to the removal of chaff (seed coverings and other unwanted debris) from grain using the wind or other air current. This use was soon extended to describe the removal of anything undesirable or unwanted (a current example of this sense would be “winnowing out sensitive material”). People then began using the word for the selection of the most desirable elements (as in “winnowing down the list to the most qualified applicants”). Although these senses are more familiar today to most English users than the one used in processing grain, if you have trouble remembering any of them, just remember that the answer, friend, is blowing in the wind.
Examples of winnow in a Sentence
Ben Travers, IndieWire, 16 Jan. 2025
The Panthers’ involvement in the next Winter Classic winnows the number of teams yet to play a regular season outdoor game to one: the Utah Hockey Club, which didn’t play in one while in Arizona.
—Jason Clinkscales, Sportico.com, 8 Jan. 2025
Through the end of 2027, the city proposes letting 29 TIF districts expire but still extending 18, leaving 90 on the books for city leaders to winnow down in order to pay off the bonds.
—A.d. Quig, Chicago Tribune, 6 Jan. 2025
Ramaswamy's name was mentioned during DeWine's announcement that Husted would take up the vacant U.S. Senate seat, with a reporter asking the governor if rumors of Ramaswamy seeking DeWine's job bid led DeWine to winnow down the list of potential rivals.
—David Faris, Newsweek, 18 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for winnow
Cite this Entry
“Winnow.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/winnow. Accessed 19 Mar. 2025.
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