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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
Maria Mocerino, Interesting Engineering, 30 Nov. 2025
Richard, now a 22-year-old surprise starter on Golden State, is soaking up the wisdom gleaned from sharing a locker room with his former idols Steph Curry and Draymond Green.
—Joseph Dycus, Mercury News, 27 Nov. 2025
To glean the magic of top quarks, CMS analyzed a huge bank of collision data, tallying the spins of top quark pairs that flew off in all different directions.
—Shalma Wegsman, Quanta Magazine, 25 Nov. 2025
How Fasting Affects Gut Hormones Scientists can glean some insight into what happens to the gut during these big meals by extrapolating data from fasting research.
—Lauren J. Young, Scientific American, 25 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for glean
Cite this Entry
“Glean.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glean. Accessed 5 Dec. 2025.
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glean
verb
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