winnow
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.
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Faced with far more applications than slots, prestigious colleges winnow the pool of prospective admits through consideration of their academic records, test scores, activities and personal attributes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 24, 2025
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
To winnow them down, the Templeton World Charity Foundation has begun supporting large-scale studies that put different pairs of theories in a head-to-head test, in a process called adversarial collaboration.
From New York Times ● Jul. 1, 2023
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
For a typical client, she identifies 2,000 prospective names, then winnows that list to just a dozen or two, which she presents to the client — a rate lower than that of Harvard admissions.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 12, 2019
It winnows through the stones as we watch, bubbling into the undeserving earth.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
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
A winnowed cattle supply has driven up prices.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 11, 2025
Per the Hollywood Reporter, Merit’s measly weekly viewer numbers soon winnowed down further, to 17,000.
From Slate ● Oct. 14, 2025
Next, Joshua Steinglass, a prosecutor with the Manhattan district attorney's office, and Todd Blanche, Mr Trump's lead attorney, took turns grilling a winnowed batch of 18 people to weed out any bias.
From BBC ● Apr. 16, 2024
The sieving winnowed out tiny pebbles and other impurities.
From "A Single Shard" by Linda Sue Park
Ten stocks survived this winnowing process, and they are listed in ascending order of their volatility.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 6, 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
Squeezing through its aperture, it’s easy to reflect on the winnowing that happens at the end of our days, as physical, mental and other abilities slowly fade.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2025
When the husks were loosened, Nhamo poured the grain into a winnowing basket.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
Vocabulary lists containing winnow
100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know
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Mythology
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100 SAT words Beginning with W,X,Y, and Z
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