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The Grainy History of Glean
While it is certainly true that one must reap what one sows (that is, harvest the crops that one plants), what should be done about the grain and other produce left over that the reapers missed? Well, friends, that must be gleaned—waste not, want not, after all. It’s a finicky business, too, picking through stalks and under leaves and whatnot. When it was first used in English in the 14th century, glean carried both the sense of “to gather grain or other produce left by reapers” and the more figurative meaning of “to gather information or material bit by bit,” reflecting the slow, gradual, painstaking work of scouring the fields. Over the years, and especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, glean has also come to be used frequently with the meaning “to find out, learn, ascertain.” This sense has been criticized by folks who think glean should always imply the drudgery involved in the literal grain-gathering sense, but it is well established and perfectly valid.
Examples of glean in a Sentence
Ashley Strickland, CNN Money, 1 May 2026
Some of the most interesting evidence was gleaned from e-mail communications between McGovern and other members of the Kinahan cartel.
—Ed Caesar, New Yorker, 30 Apr. 2026
Understanding Bernstein’s job largely requires gleaning information from records.
—Arkansas Online, 30 Apr. 2026
Federal prosecutors accused Van Dyke of using top-secret information gleaned from planning the raid to make around a dozen bets on the operation on Polymarket, a prediction market where users can bet on everything from the Super Bowl to territorial gains in the war in Ukraine.
—Michael Loria, USA Today, 28 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for glean
Cite this Entry
“Glean.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glean. Accessed 4 May. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
glean
verb
