glean
/gli:n/
Definition
- Verb:
- To collect information, knowledge, or material gradually and with patient effort, often from various sources.
- To gather (grain or other produce) left behind after a main harvest.
Usage
- The verb "glean" is used to describe the careful and often laborious process of collecting small bits of something valuable from a larger, scattered source. It implies selectivity and effort.
- It is commonly used with objects like , , , , or .
- In its agricultural sense, it is used with objects like , , or .
Examples
- Verb (Collecting Information):
- From the interview, I was able to glean some details about the company's future plans.
- Researchers gleaned valuable data from the ancient manuscripts.
- Verb (Agricultural):
- In the past, poor families would glean the fields after the harvest to find leftover grain.
Advanced Usage
- "to glean something from something": This is the most common construction, indicating the source of the information or material.
- It was hard to glean the truth from his confusing story.
- Used in passive voice to emphasize the information gathered rather than the gatherer.
- Several important clues were gleaned from the crime scene.
Variants and Related Words
- Gleaner (noun): A person who gleans.
- Historical gleaners would follow the harvesters in the field.
- Gleanings (plural noun): The items or information that have been gleaned.
- His book is a collection of gleanings from a lifetime of travel.
Synonyms
- Gather: To bring together; collect.
- Collect: To bring items together from different places.
- Cull: To select or gather from a large quantity.
- Harvest: To gather a crop (more general and complete than "glean").
Related Phrases
- To glean insights: To gradually gather understanding.
- We hope to glean insights into customer behavior from this survey.
- To glean knowledge: To acquire knowledge bit by bit.
- She gleaned her knowledge of mechanics from helping her father in the garage.
Idioms
(No common idioms are centrally built around the verb "glean" itself. Its meaning is typically used in standard phrasal constructions as shown above.)
Verb
-
gather, as of natural products
-
harvest the grapes
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