winnow out

1. 1.

   dismiss from consideration or a contest

   “John was ruled out as a possible suspect because he had a strong alibi”

   “This possibility can be eliminated from our consideration”

   Synonymsrule outeliminatereject

Questions about winnow out

What does winnow out mean?

winnow out means "dismiss from consideration or a contest".

What is another word for winnow out?

Close synonyms include rule out, eliminate, reject. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is winnow out a common word?

winnow out is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.