cull

American  

[kuhl] / kʌl /

verb (used with object)

1. 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.

2. 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

3. to collect; gather; pluck.

   Quotations are culled from a variety of literature, diaries and letters, local histories, journals, and newspapers.

   Synonyms:

   amass, garner

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noun

1. the act of culling.

2. something culled, especially something picked out and put aside as inferior.

cull British  

/ kʌl /

verb

1. to choose or gather the best or required examples

2. to take out (an animal, esp an inferior one) from a herd

3. to reduce the size of (a herd or flock) by killing a proportion of its members

4. to gather (flowers, fruit, etc)

5. to cease to employ; get rid of

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noun

1. the act or product of culling

2. an inferior animal taken from a herd or group

Other Word Forms

• culler noun
• outcull verb (used with object)
• overcull verb (used with object)

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”; 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.

Example Sentences

Some of California’s most popular campuses, including the UCs and USC, do not use AI to cull applicants, and use only human readers and admissions staff.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 2, 2026

Hokkaido plans to cull 1,200 bears annually over the next decade.

From Barron's • Dec. 24, 2025

In Jonathan Miles’s “Eradication: A Fable,” a schoolteacher who has never held a gun in his life signs up to cull 3,000 invasive goats on a remote island.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 12, 2025

Canada's top court has refused to hear an appeal to stop the cull of hundreds of ostriches at a farm in British Columbia, leaving the farmers with few legal options to prevent it.

From BBC • Nov. 6, 2025

“It’s not fair for you to cull every spend-happy tourist stepping off a pleasure boat at Fifth Harbor.”

From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo

Related Words

• extract
• glean
• pluck
• select
• sift
• winnow