Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To pick out from others; select.
  • transitive verb To gather; collect.
  • transitive verb To remove rejected members or parts from (a herd, for example).
  • noun Something picked out from others, especially something rejected because of inferior quality.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To gather; pick; collect.
  • To pick out; select or separate one or more of from others: often with out.
  • To inspect and measure, as timber.
  • noun Something picked or culled out; specifically, an object selected from among a collection or aggregate, and placed on one side, or rejected, because of inferior quality: usually in the plural: as
  • A Middle English form of kill.
  • A variant of coll.
  • noun A fool; a dupe.
  • noun A local English (Gloucestershire) name for the fish miller's-thumb.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To separate, select, or pick out; to choose and gather or collect.
  • noun A cully; a dupe; a gull. See cully.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun slang, dialectal A fool, gullible person; a dupe.
  • verb To pick or take someone or something (from a larger group).
  • verb To gather, collect.
  • verb To select animals from a group and then kill them in order to reduce the numbers of the group in a controlled manner.
  • verb nonstandard, euphemistic To kill (animals etc).
  • verb To lay off in order to reduce the size of, get rid of.
  • noun A selection.
  • noun An organised killing of selected animals.
  • noun A piece unfit for inclusion within a larger group; an inferior specimen.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the person or thing that is rejected or set aside as inferior in quality
  • verb look for and gather
  • verb remove something that has been rejected

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English cullen, from Old French cuillir, from Latin colligere; see collect.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French cuillir ("collect, gather, select"), from Latin colligo ("gather together").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Perhaps an abbreviation of cully.

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Examples

  • In your comments, a number of you were quick to point out that the wolf cull is not about sport or fair chase, but rather about wildlife management — an entirely different thing.

    Feinstein Right: Aerial Wolf Management is NOT Fair Chase 2009

  • A severe cull is required at these ranks for fiscal purposes alone.

    Why front-line police officers are glad about Dizaei « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2010

  • The cull is something that only comes every couple of years, and that's generally when all available space has finally run out and my wife refuses to let my dragon's hoard of books spill into another room.

    Does Your Bookshelf Reflect You or Your Future? 2008

  • Finally, on the to do list is to again cull through the basement and through out/give to goodwill anything we are no longer using.

    Reducing Recycling kittenpie 2006

  • The incidents that I have been able to cull from the internet are as follows:

    How Blair is killing our soldiers Richard 2006

  • But the Big Kahuna of those who really need to cull is my best friend.

    Archive 2004-11-01 Dean Francis Alfar 2004

  • But the Big Kahuna of those who really need to cull is my best friend.

    the annual culling Dean Francis Alfar 2004

  • With many, there was much reading of Testaments, humming over of favorite hymns, and looking at such books as I could cull from a miscellaneous library.

    Hospital Sketches 1863

  • In order to get a return on our investment, Treasury must follow a plan I called cull and capitalize.

    BloggingStocks 2008

  • In order to get a return on our investment, Treasury must follow a plan I called cull and capitalize.

    BloggingStocks 2008

Comments

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  • "Subsequently he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss culled on the heights, as he said, in my honour."

    Joyce, Ulysses, 15

    February 6, 2007

  • Citation (sense of fool, dupe) on nubbing cheat.

    December 23, 2011