winnow
Separate the chaff
Winnow originally means to separate grain from chaff by throwing it in the air and letting the wind blow away the lighter debris.
The word now appears mostly in figurative uses: to winnow is to sift through a larger set to find what's valuable or to reduce something to its essence.
We winnowed the applicant pool down to three finalists.
She winnowed out the weak arguments.
Study with attention
- evaluateDetermine value or quality
- assessJudge worth or quality
- scrutinizeInspect with close attention
- reviewCritical written assessment
sift · discern · judge · appraise · weigh · consider · investigate · separate
Extracting grain from stalks
- grainCereal plant's harvest unit
- chaffProtective seed coverings
- wheatCereal crop for flour
- huskDry seed covering
bran · straw · harvest · agriculture · farmer · field · barn · sickle
examine
Study with attention
- evaluateDetermine value or quality
- assessJudge worth or quality
- scrutinizeInspect with close attention
review · sift · discern · judge · appraise · weigh · consider · investigate · separate · distinguish
threshing
Extracting grain from stalks
husk · bran · straw · harvest · agriculture · farmer · field · barn · sickle · scythe
cull
Selective removal
curate · single · extract · isolate · identify · highlight · distinguish · screen · filter · shortlist
sieve
Mesh filtering utensil
sort · separate · strainer · riddle · panning · colander · percolate · decant · sediment · bolter
- harvestreaping, fall harvest, wheat sheaf, reaper, reap
- investigatinginvestigate, examine, inspect, probe, search
- narrowing downnarrow, focus, pinpoint, zero in, home in
- choiceschoice, choose, decide, decision, select
- sorting actionssift, filter, cull, weed out, separate
- filtersair filter, HEPA filter, carbon filter, screen filter, highpass