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Synonyms

weed out

British  

verb

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

    to weed out troublesome students
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
weed out Idioms  

  1. 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

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

This later became Micro1, and his screening tool was used to track down, weed out and test all kinds of experts for training AI.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 7, 2026

The idea was to weed out any prospective employer who wouldn’t welcome her unconventional look.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 16, 2025

County lawyers said they did what they could to weed out fraud, reviewing statements from plaintiffs and searching for whatever records and witnesses they could find.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 3, 2025

But Matt Britzman, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said Lloyds had been "forced to take a more aggressive approach to weed out the lower performers".

From BBC • Sep. 4, 2025

The girls helped weed out Mamá’s vegetable garden and picked fat zucchini, ripened tomatoes, and spicy serrano peppers, which they bundled together in delicate netting to give away as gifts to Mamá’s comadres.

From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall

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.