cull

1 of 2

verb

culled; culling; culls

transitive verb

1
: to select from a group : choose
culled the best passages from the poet's work
Damaged fruits are culled before the produce is shipped.
2
: to reduce or control the size of (something, such as a herd) by removal (as by hunting or slaughter) of especially weak or sick individuals
The town issued hunting licenses in order to cull the deer population.
culling a herd of cattle
also : to hunt or kill (individuals) for culling
culling diseased cows
culled hundreds of deer
culler noun

cull

2 of 2

noun

: something rejected especially as being inferior or worthless
… how to separate good-looking pecans from culls.The Washington Post

Examples of cull in a Sentence

Verb He culls his herd annually. The town issued hunting licenses in order to cull the deer population. Noun the unbruised apples will be packed in bags, and the culls will be used for cider
Recent Examples on the Web
Verb
Yet, experts say, culling bears is far from the best way to prevent future tragedies. Tristan Kennedy, WIRED, 21 Mar. 2024 Farmers blame crows for crop damage, and hunters shoot hundreds of thousands of the birds each year; in Paris, some district managers wanted permission to cull them for tearing into trash bags and digging up lawns. Ben Crair, The New Yorker, 5 Mar. 2024 This latest batch of sales came after previously culling 588,200 shares in November, 688,400 in December, and 447,200 in January. Amanda Gerut, Fortune, 28 Feb. 2024 Within that source conversation are numerous potential snippets that are computationally culled and then stored in a special storage area intended to contain the snippets and can be readily searched for their reuse. Lance Eliot, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2024 Tens of millions of chickens have died or been culled in the U.S. alone since 2022. Meghan Bartels, Scientific American, 12 Feb. 2024 The prosecution presented sometimes blurry images, culled from thousands taken on set, that appear to show the live rounds were there at least 11 days before the shooting. Gene Maddaus, Variety, 6 Mar. 2024 Google is allowing people to download systems that have been trained on enormous amounts of digital text culled from the internet. Nico Grant, New York Times, 21 Feb. 2024 Last year, the Catalina Island Conservancy caused an uproar with its plan to cull the deer using sharpshooters in helicopters, and a petition to stop the hunt racked up more than 17,000 signatures (around 4,000 people live on the island). Michael Charboneau, Los Angeles Times, 8 Feb. 2024
Noun
The fallout from Warner Music Group’s company-wide cull has already reached Australia, where the head of the domestic Warner Chappell company, Matthew Capper, is understood to be among the departures. Lars Brandle, Billboard, 9 Feb. 2024 This isn’t the first time McLeod has put forward a shark cull. Sage Marshall, Field & Stream, 17 Jan. 2024 Eventually, there will be a cull—Disney brass are already talking about cutting Marvel and other shows—but what remains will be wilder and more interesting than what’s come before. Angela Watercutter, WIRED, 16 Jan. 2024 Google hasn’t released any figures for how many accounts have been included in the cull list, but the security benefits are likely only part of the company's equation. Janhoi McGregor, Forbes, 30 Nov. 2023 The cull of staff at the Swiss lender will dramatically worsen what was already a dismal year for financial sector jobs worldwide, after Wall Street investment banks including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. announced their own cuts of thousands of staff. Laura Benitez, Fortune, 27 June 2023 Each year, wildlife managers would choose a number of elephants to cull—usually somewhere from 350 to 500. Katharine Gammon, The Atlantic, 1 Dec. 2023 And bear hunts are returning to states that had previously prohibited them, including in New Jersey, which re-legalized a limited cull last fall. Amelia Nierenberg, New York Times, 24 Aug. 2023 The man and his son were participating in a large cull hunt at the time, Svenska Dagbladet reports. Travis Hall, Field & Stream, 24 Aug. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cull.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Verb and Noun

Middle English, from Anglo-French culier, coillir, from Latin colligere to bind together — more at collect

First Known Use

Verb

13th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Noun

1809, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of cull was in the 13th century

Dictionary Entries Near cull

Cite this Entry

“Cull.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cull. Accessed 29 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

cull

1 of 2 verb
1
: to select from a group : choose
2
: to reduce or control the size of (as a herd) by removal of usually weaker animals
a hunt to cull the growing deer population
culler noun

cull

2 of 2 noun
: something rejected from a group or lot as being not as good as the rest

More from Merriam-Webster on cull

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!