weed out

verb

1. (tr, adverb) to separate out, remove, or eliminate (anything unwanted)

   to weed out troublesome students

Idioms and Phrases

Eliminate as inferior, unsuited, or unwanted, as in She was asked to weed out the unqualified applicants. This expression transfers removing weeds from a garden to removing unwanted elements from other enterprises. [First half of 1500s]

Example Sentences

He believes US forces can help weed out drugs from the 1.2 million tons of cargo a year that passes through Manta every year, including a large chunk of Ecuador's tuna exports.

Read more on Barron's

For the last three years, she had reshuffled the cabinet multiple times and replaced military and intelligence chiefs, in moves seen as weeding out loyalists of her predecessor.

Read more on BBC

Anyone deemed untrainable or seen as dragging their feet risks being weeded out of hiring processes, marked down in performance reviews or laid off.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The long biotech winter cleaned up the sector: Many biotech companies that went public too early during the COVID-inspired biotech frenzy got weeded out by the sector’s subsequent weakness, Renna says.

Read more on MarketWatch

The firm has denied paying clients to sue and said it has “systems in place to help weed out false or exaggerated allegations.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• cull 
• derive 
• distill 
• elicit 
• exact 
• extort 
• extricate 
• glean 
• obtain 
• pluck 
• pry 
• pull 
• reap 
• separate 
• siphon 
• squeeze 
• withdraw 
• wrest 
• wring