glean

/ɡliːn/

verb 9
noun 2
forms 6

verb9

•
To collect (fruit, grain, or other produce) from a field, an orchard, etc., after the main gathering or harvest.
- So holy, and so perfect is my loue, / And I in such a pouerty of grace, / That I shall thinke it a most plenteous crop / To gleane the broken eares after the man / That the maine haruest reapes: […] — 1598
•
To collect fruit, grain, or other produce after the main gathering or harvest.
- Put nat your horses in to the corne felde yet for my folkes haue nat gleaned there yet: […] — 1530
•
(figurative) 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.
- By Jay'd! ay, that's another Excellence of the Don's; he does not only glean up all the Bad VVords of other Authors, but makes nevv Bad VVords of his ovvn. — 1729
•
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.
- Seen traveling and foraging in noisy flocks of 5 to 30 or more birds, gleaning insects, eggs, and larvae from shrubs and trees. — 2006
•
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.
- On migration, it [the Wilson's warbler (Cardellina pusilla)] appears as a sunny flash of gold in roadside shrubs or swamp thickets, refueling on insects gleaned from leaves or caught in midair forays. — 1980
(figurative) To take away (someone's) possessions; to strip (someone) bare.
•
(figurative, no longer used) To collect or gather (things) into one mass.
- Such slender arguments be gleaneth together agaynst vs, seeking bye matters. But what should he do? else should he haue nought to furnishe his counterblast withall. — 1573
(figurative, no longer used) To cut off (straggling soldiers separated from their units) during a conflict; to isolate.
(no longer used) Of an animal, especially a cow or sheep: to deliver its afterbirth or placenta.

noun2

•
(dialect) A collection of something made by gleaning.
- But late at Night, vvith vveary Pinions come / The lab'ring Youth, and heavy laden home. / Plains, Meads, and Orchards all the day he plies, / The gleans of yellovv Thime distend his Thighs: […] — 1697
•
(no longer used) The afterbirth or placenta of an animal, especially a cow or sheep.
- The gleane of a covv hauing nevvly calved, taken vvhiles it is moist and so applied, is good for any ulcers of the visage. — 1601

forms

gleaned · gleanedst · gleaning · gleaneth · gleans · gleanest