Meaning

9 senses
  1. (transitive)To collect (fruit, grain, or other produce) from a field, an orchard, etc., after the main gathering or harvest.

    nachlesen, schnorren

    подбира́тьpodbirátʹ, подобра́тьpodobrátʹ, собира́тьsobirátʹ

    підбиратиpidbyraty, визбируватиvyzbyruvaty, збиратиzbyraty

  2. (figuratively, transitive)To gather (something, now chiefly something intangible such as experience or information) in small amounts over a period of time, often with some difficulty; to scrape together.

    herausbekommen, zusammentragen

    собира́тьsobirátʹ, собра́тьsobrátʹ

  3. (figuratively, transitive)To take away (someone's) possessions; to strip (someone) bare.

  4. (figuratively, transitive)Of an animal, especially a bat or a bird: to feed by picking up or plucking (prey, mainly arthropods such as insects) from various places.

  5. (intransitive)To collect fruit, grain, or other produce after the main gathering or harvest.

  6. (intransitive)Of an animal, especially a bat or a bird: to feed by picking up or plucking prey, mainly arthropods such as insects, from various places.

  7. (figuratively, obsolete, transitive)To collect or gather (things) into one mass.

  8. (figuratively, obsolete, transitive)To cut off (straggling soldiers separated from their units) during a conflict; to isolate.

  9. (intransitive, obsolete)Of an animal, especially a cow or sheep: to deliver its afterbirth or placenta.

More definitions
  • gather, as of natural products

Examples

9 sentences
  1. He has gleaned knowledge from various books.

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  2. What can you glean from his search history?

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  3. The lion doesn't glean ants.

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  4. More can often be gleaned from body language than from what is actually being said.

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  5. The willow has leaned towards the basin to glean a drop of water but found nothing there.

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Translations

8 languages
Українська
By meaning 1
to collect produce:
Русский
By meaning 1
to collect produce:
Deutsch
By meaning 2
to collect produce:
figurative: to gather:

Origin

The verb is derived from Late Middle English glenen (“to gather (heads of grain left by re

The verb is derived from Late Middle English glenen (“to gather (heads of grain left by reapers), glean; to gather (things) together, collect”), from Old French glener, glainer (modern French glaner (“to gather, glean”)), from Late Latin glen(n)are, the present active infinitive of glen(n)ō (“to make a collection”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Gaulish, from Proto-Celtic *glanos (“clean; clear”, adjective), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰleh₁- (“to glow, shine; to be glowing or shining”).

Possibly a variant of clean (“(UK, dialectal; noun) the afterbirth of a cow or sheep; (verb) of a cow or sheep: to bring forth the afterbirth”), possibly from clean (“to remove dirt from an object or place”), referring to an animal’s uterus being cleaned out by the delivery of the afterbirth.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

gleans, gleaning, gleaned, gleaned
Base formglean · to glean
3rd person singulargleans
Present participlegleaning
Past simplegleaned
Past participlegleaned

regular · Lesson

Present simpleLesson

I, you, we, theyglean
he, she, itgleans

Past simpleLesson

all personsgleaned

Present perfectLesson

I, you, we, theyhave gleaned
he, she, ithas gleaned

Future simple (will)Lesson

all personswill glean

Synonyms

7 synonyms
Close in meaning

Word family

4 related words

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
glean — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto