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Glite Dictionary
🌾 To separate grain 🤿 To struggle wildly 🥊 To beat hard
to thresh

to thresh

1 8.5
Beat grain to separate the seeds from the stalks
  • verb
  • /θrɛʃ/
translation icon : trillar
  • To prepare for baking, you need to thresh the oats, which involves beating them to separate the seeds.
  • thresh the rice

Examples

  • First, the grain had to be threshed to remove the inedible husks.

  • On the way, I am momentarily distracted by women threshing and winnowing wheat.

    Academic text (2003)

  • You threshed the grain that made this bread.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Photo (color): Women thresh wheat to separate the seed from the straw.

    Academic text (2003)

  • The peanuts had to be threshed.

    Academic text (2008)

  • Enjoying midwinter sunshine, farmers in a wall-side village in Hebei Province use a rented machine to thresh corn.

    Academic text (2003)

  • Much of the hand-harvested rice is threshed mechanically these days, but Ojibway rice and cultivated rice still differ.

    Academic text (1998)

  • Thousands of feet below, descendants of the Incas still cultivate quinua, their sacred "mother-grain," threshing the grain with wooden clubs.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • Farmers often use a machine to thresh wheat and separate the seeds from the chaff.

  • After the harvest, they will thresh the barley to collect the grains for storage.

Synonyms

to thrash
vsto thresh
  • Archaic
1 9.2

Beat grain to separate the seeds from the plant

is specific to removing seeds from grain rather than from whole plants

Antonyms

to join
∞ 1.0

Connect two things so they become attached

to combine
638 2.7

To mix two or more things into one

Phrasal Verbs

to thresh about
1 7.9

Make quick, wild movements because you are afraid or in pain

to thresh out
6.8

Discuss a problem or idea carefully to reach a decision

How Forceful

to flail
  • NSFW
6 7.6
to pummel
46 6.7
to thresh
1 8.5
to beat
  • NSFW
∞ 1.2
tap
66 1.0

Surface Forms

thresh infinitive
threshed past
threshed past participle
threshing present participle
threshes third person singular

Etymology

Thresh comes from an old English verb threscan meaning 'to beat', and farmers used it for beating grain so the seeds fall out. Think of people hitting grain on a hard floor or a machine called a thresher doing the same job. That's why thresh means to separate seeds from a grain by beating.