Cull
Origin 1
From Old French cuillir ("collect, gather, select"), from Latin colligo ("gather together").
Full definition of cull
Verb
- To pick or take someone or something (from a larger group).
- 1984, cover star: JOE DALLESANDRO culled from Andy Warhol's FLESH — anonymous; sleeve notes from The Smiths' eponymous album
- To gather, collect.
- Tennysonwhitest honey in fairy gardens culled
- 1977, Geoffrey Chaucer, , Penguin Classics, p. 202:Chaucer's prose Tale of Melibee ... is a dialectal homily of moral debate, exhibiting a learned store of ethical precept culled from many ancient authorities.
- To select animals from a group and then kill them in order to reduce the numbers of the group in a controlled manner.
- (nonstandard, euphemistic) To kill (animals etc).
- To lay off in order to reduce the size of, get rid of.
Noun
cull
(plural culls)- A selection.
- An organised killing of selected animals.
- 2012-12-18, Isobel Montgomery, A year that showed the best and worst of Britain, It seemed that the sun shone and all was right in our Blakean islands until the government began to set in motion its promised cull of badgers in an effort to control bovine TB. Salvation for brock came in the form of an online petition started by Queen guitarist Brian May, the rising costs of the programme and the weather.
- A piece unfit for inclusion within a larger group; an inferior specimen.
Origin 2
Perhaps an abbreviation of cully.