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• n  the act of separating grain from chaff
  the winnowing was done by women
• v  separate the chaff from by using air currents
  She stood there winnowing chaff all day in the field
• v  blow on
  The wind was winnowing her hair
  the wind winnowed the grass
• v  select desirable parts from a group or list
  winnow the finalists from the long list of applicants
• v  blow away or off with a current of air
  winnow chaff

• Things were getting so tough that the host committee, trying to winnow Hollywood's must-be-seen-there thousands down to a sociable 400, flatly decided to discriminate against .
• For the next few days the chief problem of correspondents was to winnow truth from fable in untold rumors (flourishing in Sweden in particular) of expeditions, battles, disasters.
• Simmons has given herself a six-month deadline to winnow her stuff to 100 things--or at least 100 categories of things.

• winnowing
• sifting
• fan
• cull out

News & Articles

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• Town Board looks to define grant requests
  At Tuesday’s Town Board work session members began to winnow down projects they want to ask government agencies to help fund.
  June 20, 2013 - The Shelter Island Reporter

Quotes

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• Ken Mehlman in Seattle Times
  What's so amazing about this election cycle is that everything that's happened from the beginning, including in Iowa, has made it more open and more fluid, whereas usually the effect of the process is to winnow down the candidates,said Ken...
• Charles Grassley in Sydney Morning Herald
  It also helps winnow out the second tier candidates,Senator Grassley told a bemused foreign media pack.
• Henry Louis Gates in Business Wire (press release)
  We were thrilled to receive so many applications, and deeply impressed at the large number of people who have already made great strides in researching their family history,said Professor Gates. "It was extremely difficult to winnow those...