cull
Americanverb (used with object)
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culls,
present (3rd person singular)
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culled,
past participle, past
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culling
present participle
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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.
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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.
- Synonyms:
- single out, cherry-pick
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Quotations are culled from a variety of literature, diaries and letters, local histories, journals, and newspapers.
noun
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culls
plural
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the act of culling.
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something culled, especially something picked out and put aside as inferior.
verb
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to choose or gather the best or required examples
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to take out (an animal, esp an inferior one) from a herd
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to reduce the size of (a herd or flock) by killing a proportion of its members
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to gather (flowers, fruit, etc)
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to cease to employ; get rid of
noun
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the act or product of culling
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an inferior animal taken from a herd or group
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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cullsimple
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cullssimple
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have culledperfect
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has culledperfect
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am cullingprogressive
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are cullingprogressive
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is cullingprogressive
-
have been cullingperfect progressive
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has been cullingperfect progressive
Past
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culledsimple
-
had culledperfect
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was cullingprogressive
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were cullingprogressive
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had been cullingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cull
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English coilen, cuilen, cullen, from Anglo-French, Old French coillir, cuillir, from Latin colligere “to gather”; see collect 1
Explanation
To cull means to select or gather. If you decide to make a literary anthology, you must cull the best possible stories and then arrange them in a pleasing manner. When you use cull as a verb, the things you gather can be the good or bad ones from a group. In your garden, you can cull the good vegetables for dinner, or the rotten ones for the compost pile. In fact, often no judgment of quality is made, as when you cull information from the Internet for your next research project. The sorting through will come later. However, if you use the word as a noun, a cull is a selection of things you intend to reject, often in reference to a group of animals. An outbreak of a disease such as foot-and-mouth disease can cause authorities to order a cull of farm pigs.
Vocabulary lists containing cull
Unbroken
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The Westing Game
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"'Blaxicans' and Other Reinvented Americans," Vocabulary from the argument
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Muir has also previously insisted that Daera had "no choice" but to cull the cattle.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
As avian flu spread like wildfire through the industry, poultry farmers were forced to cull 26 million birds, leading prices to skyrocket.
From Barron's ● Aug. 5, 2026
A previous order by former minister Edwin Poots for a cull of badgers was quashed by the High Court.
From BBC ● Aug. 2, 2026
Campaigners said requirements to cut livestock grazing on the moor's commons, under new contracts from the government's conservation agency, could lead to the removal - and likely cull - of up to 90% hill ponies.
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2026
The old-timers wanted to see how we’d handle it, wanted to cull the faint of heart.
From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover
The model, which does not source without permission, culls mountains of data about the natural world from partners including the Smithsonian, London’s Natural History Museum and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 23, 2026
Predictably, calls for shark culls have gathered momentum and volume.
From BBC ● Jan. 23, 2026
Meanwhile, there are too few indications that China’s economic slowdown is leading to the sort of business upheaval that culls lagging businesses in a recession.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 8, 2026
But vaccination alone did not stop the disease -- several culls were needed across the region.
From Barron's ● Dec. 17, 2025
In general, two grades to sell represent a good plan, leaving culls at home unless prices are high and there is good demand for them.
From The Tomato by Paul Work
The other half of cattle moving through the plant were culled dairy cows and livestock from the southeastern U.S. and upstate New York.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
The price of eggs shot up after millions of hens were culled following the UK's worst outbreak of avian flu between 2021 and 2023.
From BBC ● May 24, 2026
It will pair garments with artwork culled from the museum’s collections.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 29, 2026
The local government's aim is to cut that population by half, and 24,000 animals have been culled so far this year.
From BBC ● Apr. 5, 2026
Hurd is wearing a casual robe and turban, and before him are two books, one of them devoted to heraldry from which he culled the coats of arms he needed for his work.
From "History of Art, Volume 1" by H.W. Janson
Ford’s “iconic” swerve: CEO Jim Farley is culling the automaker’s broad lineup of often “boring” models to focus on the “iconic vehicle” business.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
The culling of farm animals in Northern Ireland is strictly regulated by Daera under specific laws.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
“I always think, like the song, about cleaning it up or at least culling it so I could get all the records off the floor and onto the shelves.”
From Salon ● Jul. 29, 2026
According to Shanker, limited culling may sometimes discourage wild animals from entering human-dominated areas more effectively than several other approaches currently in use.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 15, 2026
He would open the rakes and drop his catch onto the wooden culling board.
From "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
