cull
to select and remove from a group, especially to discard or destroy as inferior: When I cull the smaller curved saplings, I'm careful to protect and nurture the straighter and larger trees.
to discard unwanted parts or remove choice parts from (a group): Ranchers must decide whether to buy expensive feed or cull their herds to weather the drought.
the act of culling.
something culled, especially something picked out and put aside as inferior.
Origin of cull
1Other words for cull
Other words from cull
- cull·er, noun
- out·cull, verb (used with object)
- o·ver·cull, verb (used with object)
Words that may be confused with cull
Words Nearby cull
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use cull in a sentence
The social media giant’s global cull of Australian news hit not only media companies, but also a wide range of governmental organizations, including some state and local health departments and the Bureau of Meteorology.
How Australia May Have Just Saved Journalism From Big Tech | Robert Whitehead | February 22, 2021 | TimeIn March 2020 it was one of the first countries in Europe to institute a lockdown to try to contain the virus, and in November it was quick to order a cull of farmed minks when a new variant spotted in the animals was linked to 12 cases in humans.
Why Denmark’s “corona passport” is more of a promise than a plan | Bobbie Johnson | February 10, 2021 | MIT Technology ReviewA cull hunt is often ruled out of the question due to human population densities, so game managers have employed many different tactics with varying degrees of success.
Four wild animals that are thriving in cities | By Ryan Chelius/Outdoor Life | February 9, 2021 | Popular-ScienceDenmark will dig up millions of dead mink after a hasty cull and burial intended to stamp out a coronavirus mutation ended with the rotting carcasses triggering a new contamination risk.
Denmark to exhume bodies of COVID-19 infected mink over contamination risk | kdunn6 | December 21, 2020 | FortuneJakob Ellemann-Jensen, the head of the biggest opposition party, the Liberals, told broadcaster TV2 he won’t back the government’s proposal for a mass cull here and now.
Denmark’s prime minister says its mink population will be culled—but she’s facing political resistance | kdunn6 | November 9, 2020 | Fortune
Could I, along with a few other Tumblr users, help cull through the questions and select some?
The Exciting-but-Depressing Obama-Tumblr Student-Loan Summit | Kelly Williams Brown | June 11, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTIn 2012 she again raised eyebrows when she suggested that badgers shot in any cull should be eaten.
The Week in Death: Clarissa Dickson Wright, One of ‘Two Fat Ladies’ | The Telegraph | March 22, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTIn this case, a cull of the Taliban and ISAF tweets yields a unique view into the current state of Afghan affairs.
Steele visited Sparks in Harlem to cull from his collection of high-end labels and vintage pieces.
Queer Style A History of Fashion at FIT in New York | Peter Davis | September 14, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTPrenatal testing leads to more abortions and prompts us to “cull the ranks of the disabled”?
They are goin' to skid the butt log again, and they swear that if you cull it again, they will kill you.
Blazed Trail Stories | Stewart Edward WhiteHe would doubtless have pressed bologna now on Tod McNeil had that social cull stayed by.
The Wrong Twin | Harry Leon WilsonThere we cull the flowers of the field and the forest glade, weaving them into garlands, building them into nosegays.
Fibble, D. D. | Irvin Shrewsbury CobbThe items we cull relate to a trade once very general in the United States, but happily now a thing of the past.
Literary Byways | William AndrewsLet no man say that these were simply oranges, for these a man may cull in many a Greek garden to-day.
The Walls of Constantinople | Bernard Granville Baker
British Dictionary definitions for cull
/ (kʌl) /
to choose or gather the best or required examples
to take out (an animal, esp an inferior one) from a herd
to reduce the size of (a herd or flock) by killing a proportion of its members
to gather (flowers, fruit, etc)
to cease to employ; get rid of
the act or product of culling
an inferior animal taken from a herd or group
Origin of cull
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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