Meaning & use

cull

verb·Academic

To reduce a population by selectively removing some members, often the weaker ones, especially among animals.

See it in a sentence

Wildlife rangers cull the deer herd each autumn to prevent overgrazing and disease in the forest.

Editors culled dozens of weak sentences from the manuscript before sending it to the publisher.

A note on using this word

Cull often implies removing inferior or excess members from a group, whether animals, data, or ideas.

Words with a similar meaning

thin outremoveselect

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

Another way to use it

2. noun

An act of reducing a population, especially of wild animals, by selective killing.

The government ordered a cull after the disease spread rapidly among the rabbit population.

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