Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word glean. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word glean, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say glean in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word glean you have here. The definition of the word glean will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofglean, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
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:
He ruined vineyards lying in the sun, / After his harvesting the men must glean / What he had left; right glad they had not been / Among the tall stalks of the ripening wheat, / The fell destroyer's fatal tusks to meet.
1977 September 16, Elmer Boyd Staats, Comptroller General, “Food Loss”, in Food Waste: An Opportunity to Improve Resource Use: Report to the Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States (CED-77-118), Washington, D.C.: United States General Accounting Office, →OCLC, page 13:
Some harvest loss was gleaned by animals, although little information is available on the proportion of harvest loss gleaned and no hard data is available on the quantity. Academic researchers told us that as much as one-third of the corn lost in harvest was gleaned.
Applied to animals feeding on crops.
To collect fruit, grain, or other produce from (a field, an orchard, etc.), after the main gathering or harvest.
And thou ſhalt not gleane thy vineyard, neither ſhalt thou gather euery grape of thy vineyard; thou ſhalt leaue them for the poore and ſtranger: I am the Lord your God.
1634, T H, “A Discourse and Proofe that Madoc ap Owen Gwynedd First Found Out that Continent Now Call’d America”, in A Relation of Some Yeares Trauaile, Begunne Anno 1626. into Afrique and the Greater Asia,, London: William Stansby, and Jacob Bloome, →OCLC, page 224:
Magellan ſoone after ſailes yet more South, and paſſes that Fretum or ſtrait, vvith more reaſon called Magellan, a hundred others haue ſince that gleaned ſeueral additions of Titles and nevv names their diſtributed.
In the Knovvledge of Bodies, vve muſt be content to glean vvhat vve can from particular Experiments, ſince vve cannot from a Diſcovery of their real Eſſences, graſp at a time vvhole Sheaves; and in Bundles, comprehend the Nature and Properties of vvhole Species together.
1705, J Addison, “Towns within the Neighbourhood of Rome”, in Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: Jacob Tonson,, →OCLC, pages 375–376:
It is entertaining to obſerve hovv the ſeveral little Springs and Rills, that break out of the Sides of the Mountain, are glean'd up, and convey'd thro' little cover'd Channels into the main Hollovv of the Aqueduct.
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.
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, / While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return / To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.
1863, R. F. L., “Sequence for the Epiphany. From the Latin of Adam of S Victor.”, in The Union Review. A Magazine of Catholic Literature and Art, volume I, London: J. T. Hayes,; Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., →OCLC, page 504:
All thy joys from earth thou gleanest / From things basest and obscenest,
The shards, the shards of the sword, that thou gleanedst for my sake / In the night on the field of slaughter, in the tide when my father fell, / Hast thou kept them through sorrow and joyance? has thou warded them trusty and well? / Where hast thou laid them, my mother?
1912, Edith Oland, Warner Oland, “Biographical Note”, in Edith and Warner Oland, transl., Three Plays by August Strindberg: Countess Julie, The Outlaw, the Stronger (International Pocket Library; 36), Boston, Mass.: International Pocket Library, →OCLC, page xi:
Strindberg went to Stockholm, where for a few months he gleaned a living from newspaper work; but in the summer he went to a remote island in Bothnia Bay, where in his twenty-third year he wrote his great historical drama, Master Olof.
2011 December 8, “Iran Shows Film of Captured US Drone”, in BBC News, archived from the original on 2024-01-20:
He said Iran was "well aware of what priceless technological information" could be gleaned from the aircraft.
Frigate birds glean a portion of their livelihood from the host of creatures which live at the surface of the ocean: flying-fishes, ctenophores, jelly-fishes, velela, janthina, and in fact anything that may attract their fancy. I even observed one bird aimlessly carrying a splinter of wood, uncertain of its utility, yet unwilling to release it.
2006, “Bushtits ”, in Jonathan Alderfer, editor, National Geographic Field Guide to Birds: Washington & Oregon, Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, →ISBN, page 173:
Seen traveling and foraging in noisy flocks of 5 to 30 or more birds, gleaning insects, eggs, and larvae from shrubs and trees.
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.
And they turned and fled toward the wilderneſſe vnto the rocke of Rimmon: and they gleaned of them in the high wayes fiue thouſand men: and purſued hard after them vnto Gidom, and ſlew two thouſand men of them.
To collect fruit, grain, or other produce after the main gathering or harvest.
1530 July 28 (Gregorian calendar), Iohan Palsgraue , “The Table of Verbes”, in Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse⸝, : ">…] fynnysshed by Iohan Haukyns, →OCLC, 3rd boke, folio ccxlix, verso, column 2; reprinted Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, October 1972, →OCLC:
Put nat your horſes in to the corne felde yet for my folkes haue nat gleaned there yet:
And ſhe ſaid, I pray you, let mee gleane and gather after the reapers amongſt the ſheaues:
a.1632 (date written), , “Mans Timely Remembring of His Creator; or An Exposition Delivered in a Sermon upon Ecclesiastes 12. 1.”, in William Milbourne, editor, Sapientia Clamitans, Wisdome Crying Out to Sinners to Returne from Their Evill Wayes:, London: I Haviland, for R Milbourne, published 1638, →OCLC, page 268:
Offer thy ſelfe to God then, as Primitas ſpicarium, vvhether thou gleaneſt in the vvorld, or bindeſt up by vvhole ſheaves; vvhether thine increaſe be by little and little, or thou be rich at once, by the devolution of a rich inheritance and patrimony unto thee.
Alſo it hath been ſaid, that by the common law and cuſtom of England the poor are allovved to enter and glean upon another's ground after the harveſt, vvithout being guilty of treſpaſs: vvhich humane proviſion ſeems borrovved from the moſaical lavv.
(zoology) 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 appears as a sunny flash of gold in roadside shrubs or swamp thickets, refueling on insects gleaned from leaves or caught in midair forays.
(transitive) to collect (fruit, grain, or other produce) from a field, an orchard, etc., after the main gathering or harvest; to collect fruit, grain, or other produce from (a field, an orchard, etc.), after the main gathering or harvest; (intransitive) to collect fruit, grain, or other produce after the main gathering or harvest
to gather (something, now chiefly something intangible such as experience or information) in small amounts over a period of time, often with some difficulty
(transitive) Of an animal: to feed by picking up or plucking (prey, mainly arthropods such as insects) from various places; (intransitive) of an animal: to feed by picking up or plucking prey from various places
Even the greateſt, in reſpect of God, is but a gleaner. God, he is the Maſter of the Harveſt; all Gifts and Graces they are his, in an infinite meaſure; and every godly man, more or leſſe, gleanes from him. Abraham gleaned a great gleane of Faith; Moſes, of Meekneſſe;
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:
A figurative use.
Etymology 2
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.
ur midvvives doe vvarrant, that if a vvoman drinke goats urine, it vvill ſtrip all fluxes of bloud be they never ſo immoderat, ſo that ſhe apply alſo outvvardly the dung of the ſaid beaſt. The pellicle or gleane vvherein a kid vvas enfolded vvithin the dams vvombe, kept untill it bee drie and drunke in vvine, putteth foorth the after-birth in vvomen.
1744, William Ellis, “Of Cows and Calves”, in The Modern Husbandman, or, The Practice of Farming, volume II (Containing, the Months of April, May, and June), London: T Osborne,, and M Cooper, →OCLC, page 150:
This Method of giving VVater to a nevv-calved Covv, vvherein Aſhes are thus put, is conſtantly practiſed by ſome to cleanſe her, and bring avvay her Glean.
Verb
glean (third-person singular simple presentgleans, present participlegleaning, simple past and past participlegleaned)
1744, William Ellis, “Of Bulls, Cows, and Calves”, in The Modern Husbandman, or, The Practice of Farming, volume II (Containing, the Months of April, May, and June), London: T Osborne,, and M Cooper, →OCLC, page 150:
To make a Covv glean vvell, and keep her in Health aftervvards.— And as it is a Cuſtom vvith ſome to give all their Covvs a cleanſing Drink after Calving, I recommend this to be a good one for that Purpoſe.— A fourth is, to boil a Quart of ground Malt in tvvo Quarts of Ale, and give all vvarm. A certain Perſon gave this laſt to a Covv, vvhich, on the third Day after Calving, had not gleaned; but in five Days after it came avvay vvhole.
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2024; “glean, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
gleaning on Wikipedia.Wikipedia 