thresh
Americanverb (used with object)
-
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)
-
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
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.
"I bet some of them are grain. I bet Thresh knows which ones, too," I say.
From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
I feel almost certain that the person she ran from was Thresh and that is his domain.
From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
What I do say is, "It's just . . . if we didn't win . . . I wanted Thresh to. Because he let me go. And because of Rue."
From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
Thresh has Cato's backpack containing the thing he needs desperately.
From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
And I understand that, for the moment, Thresh is not going to smash in my skull.
From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
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.
