GLEAN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Glean

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/glin/ Listen

verb

Glean v. t. (past & past part. gleaned; pres. part. gleaning)

To gather after a reaper; to collect in scattered or fragmentary parcels, as the grain left by a reaper, or grapes left after the gathering. "To glean the broken ears after the man That the main harvest reaps."

To gather from (a field or vineyard) what is left.

To collect with patient and minute labor; to pick out; to obtain. "Content to glean what we can from... experiments."

Glean v. i.

To gather stalks or ears of grain left by reapers. "And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers."

To pick up or gather anything by degrees. "Piecemeal they this acre first, then that; Glean on, and gather up the whole estate."

noun

Glean n. A collection made by gleaning. "The gleans of yellow thyme distend his thighs."

Glean n. Cleaning; afterbirth. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Glean'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Glean" Quotes from Famous Books

... home. He hastened down Walnut street, crossed Red Cross into Campbell, and made for the woods. The bandits rode up to the minister's house, dismounted and surrounded it, but the quarry was gone. From the frightened wife and little ones they could glean no information as to the whereabouts of the minister. They were about to satisfy their vengeance by subjecting the helpless woman to revolting indignities, when a boy ran up to inform them of the direction in which the man had fled. ...

— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... a brush patch and managed to glean an armful of nearly dry wood, which he broke up with the axe and fed to the fire, coaxing it into freer blazing. The stranger watched him unobtrusively, critically, pottering about while Bud ...

— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... much low peasantry would then be pick'd From the true seed ofhonour? how much honour Glean'd from the chaff? ...

— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... to glean any farther information about the surrounding country, we (con)descended to work in the shady caves, swimming and working alternately during the day, for we had plenty of the ever-recurring tasks to do, namely, the repairing of pack-bags and ...

— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... the old poetic fame The gods are blind and lame, And the simular despite Betrays the more abounding might, So call not waste that barren cone Above the floral zone, Where forests starve: It is pure use;— What sheaves like those which here we glean and bind Of a ...

— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

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