thresh
Americanverb (used with object)
-
threshes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
threshed,
past participle, past
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threshing
present participle
-
to separate the grain or seeds from (a cereal plant or the like) by some mechanical means, as by beating with a flail or by the action of a threshing machine.
-
to beat as if with a flail.
verb (used without object)
-
threshes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
threshed,
past participle, past
-
threshing
present participle
-
to thresh wheat, grain, etc.
-
to deliver blows as if with a flail.
noun
verb phrase
verb
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to beat or rub stalks of ripe corn or a similar crop either with a hand implement or a machine to separate the grain from the husks and straw
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(tr) to beat or strike
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to toss and turn; thrash
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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threshsimple
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threshessimple
-
have threshedperfect
-
has threshedperfect
-
am threshingprogressive
-
are threshingprogressive
-
is threshingprogressive
-
have been threshingperfect progressive
-
has been threshingperfect progressive
Past
-
threshedsimple
-
had threshedperfect
-
was threshingprogressive
-
were threshingprogressive
-
had been threshingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of thresh
before 900; Middle English threschen, thresshen, Old English threscan; cognate with German dreschen, Gothic thriskan; akin to Dutch dorsen, Old Norse thriskja
Explanation
To thresh is to harvest seeds from grain by beating or crushing it. Before the invention of machines to do this task, it took a huge amount of time to thresh grain by hand. To make this tedious task go faster, farmers used to thresh in groups, throwing threshing bees where neighbors worked together. Special sticks called flails were used to beat the seeds out of the grain, and it took about an hour to thresh a bushel of wheat. The threshing machine was invented in the late 1700s, and today most farmers thresh using a combine harvester, which harvests and threshes the grain right in the field.
Vocabulary lists containing thresh
Mythology
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The Good Earth
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Wolf Hollow
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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:
In the absence of narrative tension, then, we are left with this thresh of rival perspectives, all generously delivered in the same third-person omniscient.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 13, 2017
I didn’t know that, on a nineteenth-century farm, one might see horses “walking on treadmills that ran machines to compress hay into bundles and to thresh wheat.”
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 13, 2016
Everywhere we went, we stopped to help women pick chiles or men thresh rice.
From New York Times ● Dec. 16, 2015
Q: Does he thresh things out with you?
From US News ● Jun. 5, 2015
Then, we came and gathered up what remained of the paddy and took it away to thresh and winnow.
From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya
On a crisp, bright afternoon in early October, Ethan watched his father weld their broken 1980s combine harvester head, which cuts and threshes corn.
From New York Times ● Nov. 23, 2021
In the cab more than half a dozen screens are pumping out data as the machine reaps, threshes and winnows.
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2018
Collaborating with women farmers in Niger, Trimble designed a compact, solar-powered device that threshes and winnows pearl millet, allowing more daily meals to be produced without such a physical toll.
From National Geographic ● Sep. 18, 2017
Reality TV is shiny, loopy, and fun, and it retains some of these qualities even when it is being excoriated as a hideous machine that threshes smart and decent people in its maw.
From Slate ● Jun. 29, 2015
It ought to be cut before quite ripe, as it threshes off very easily, and is liable to great waste.
Ukraine sowed a total of 6.5 million hectares of winter wheat for its 2022 crop, but only 5 million hectares could be threshed by farmers on government-controlled territory.
From Reuters ● Jun. 14, 2022
He was aw-shucks Chuck, and he threshed most of his challengers with ease, often with ads that showed him tugging two mowers across his farm yard in stereo.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 4, 2021
One of McCormick’s rivals created the first combine, or machine that reaped and threshed in a single process, but his invention was not perfected until after the Civil War.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018
Embodying ambient sensations — clopping horse hooves, rhythmic hammer swings, pungent scents of freshly threshed grain — Mr. Skogsbergh’s vivid photographs, like flies on a wall, likewise bear witness to storied lives.
From New York Times ● Sep. 19, 2014
Wang Lung stood there in his dooryard where year after year he had threshed his good harvests, and which had lain now for many months idle and useless.
From "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck
A short walk away, a threshing machine spews clouds of dust and chaff as wheat pours out in a steady stream, rattling into worn brown sacks at farmers' feet.
From Barron's ● May 15, 2026
Mechanization soon followed, with threshing machines and combine harvesters leaving less behind for gleaners to collect.
From Salon ● Jan. 28, 2025
Farmers have already completed the 2023 wheat harvest, threshing 21.94 million metric tons.
From Reuters ● Aug. 29, 2023
She downloaded the book’s audio version and listened to it as she drove her 25-ton John Deere combine through her fields, reaping, threshing and winnowing hundreds of bushels.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 13, 2023
He invented and built a threshing machine and moved through the bottom farms in harvest time, threshing the grain his own farm would not raise.
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
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.
