threshed

Separated the chaff

Threshed is the past tense of thresh, meaning to separate grain from stalks and husks by beating or mechanical action.

Traditionally done by hand with flails, now performed by machines: The wheat was threshed and stored for winter.

Figuratively, to thresh out a problem is to work through it exhaustively, examining every angle.

farming

grain

Cereal plant's harvest unit

wheatCereal crop for flour
chaffProtective seed coverings
winnowingSeparating grain from chaff

flail · straw · sheaf · husk · kernel · barley · oats · rye · sorghum · millet

traditional

flail

Swing limbs erratically

ancestralOf one's forebears
heritageInherited cultural legacy
pre-industrialBefore mass manufacturing emerged

communal · harvest festival · customs · rituals · mortar and pestle · agrarian · subsistence

metaphorical

beaten

Having lost a contest

poundedStruck hard, repeatedly
exhaustedUtterly depleted of energy
worn outDepleted through overuse

worked over · battered · hammered · pummeled · defeated · overcome · processed · refined · separated

laborious

backbreaking

Extremely physically demanding

gruelingExtremely tiring and demanding
exhaustingDepleting one's stamina
arduousDemanding strenuous effort

strenuous · toilsome · manual labor · sweat · toil · repetitive · demanding · painstaking · wearisome · taxing

Categories

farm adjectivesagrarian, arable, cultivated, fallow, fertile
Grain Adjectivesgrainy, granular, wheaty, starchy, floury

Opposites

grain processing state

threshedunthreshed

Grain not yet processed

unhusked · unprocessed · raw · ungathered · unseparated

harvest sequence position

threshedplanted

Put into ground

sown · unreaped · growing · standing · unharvested

Phrases

threshing floorSurface for grain separation
threshing machineGrain-stalk separation apparatus
thresh outDiscuss until resolved

Family

thresh, threshing, threshes, unthreshed, threshing floor

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