winnow

As the job market cools, they are both raising the bar for entry-level jobs and seeking more consistent criteria to winnow the candidate pool.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 13, 2026

As the number of participating countries expanded over the decades, the E.B.U. set up two semifinals to winnow the field; the first took place on Tuesday, and the second happens Thursday.

From New York Times ● May 9, 2024

It and a second semifinal on Thursday will winnow a field of 37 nations to 26 who will compete in Saturday’s final against a backdrop of both parties and protests.

From Seattle Times ● May 7, 2024

The point of the process is to winnow the field to a manageable size, and winnowed the field was.

From Slate ● Jan. 20, 2024

How was she to winnow down her countless questions to a mere troika?

From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood

Then the RNA winnows the contending olfactory-receptor genes down to one.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 21, 2023

And while his company’s software winnows candidates, Mr. Garg emphasizes that it is meant to be a helper.

From New York Times ● Mar. 13, 2023

It progressively winnows out starlight, and stacks frame after frame to allow any faint planetary light to accumulate and eventually be seen.

From Scientific American ● Feb. 10, 2021

Evolution is blind and evolutionary progress is a misnomer; natural selection carves and winnows according to the ever-changing status quo.

From Salon ● Mar. 17, 2019

It winnows through the stones as we watch, bubbling into the undeserving earth.

From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

But oddly enough, the unprecedented computing power now pointed at chess hasn’t winnowed the number of strong moves—it has actually expanded them.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026

What’s the point of watching a game that can be winnowed down to a series of inputs and outputs?

From Salon ● Apr. 13, 2026

Per the Hollywood Reporter, Merit’s measly weekly viewer numbers soon winnowed down further, to 17,000.

From Slate ● Oct. 14, 2025

Hours after the list of properties was posted online, it was winnowed by more than 100 but still included 16 California properties.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 2025

Those invaders get winnowed by natural selection, and only a few of them succeed in establishing themselves as human diseases.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

Back in 2018, the company started winnowing down its massive cash pile with the goal of maintaining equivalent cash and debt levels, but Apple said it will evaluate the two metrics separately going forward.

From MarketWatch ● May 1, 2026

The winnowing of victims has been the result of byzantine legal procedures, strict vetting and tightened eligibility rules, which victims told ProPublica and the Inquirer took them by surprise.

From Salon ● Apr. 24, 2026

Ask DePetro why someone might prefer his content to the nightly news, and he’ll gesture toward the rapidly winnowing media industry.

From Slate ● Feb. 23, 2026

The winnowing has hit especially hard in Delaware, DuPont’s home base.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 8, 2026

Everybody knew it was his mother, Kate, who saved him from affliction and the early winnowing that is every plantation slave’s first trial.

From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead