Meaning & use
thresh
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Meanings
verbtransitive or intransitivespecialist
To beat or machine-process harvested plants to separate the grain from the stalks and husks.
Grammar: Takes an object: thresh the wheat; or none: they threshed all day.
Patterns
- thresh grain
- thresh wheat
Farmers used to thresh the wheat with long wooden flails.
The machine can thresh a whole field in a day.
They threshed until the sun went down.
verbintransitiveinformal
To move about wildly, swinging arms or legs in a violent way.
Grammar: Usually thresh about or thresh around: no object follows.
Patterns
- thresh about
- thresh around
The swimmer threshed about in the water until a rescuer arrived.
He threshed around in bed, unable to sleep.
The fish threshed wildly on the line.
Word forms
| third person singular | threshes |
|---|---|
| past tense | threshed |
| past participle | threshed |
| -ing form | threshing |
Common combinations
- thresh grain
- The farm hands thresh grain in late summer.
- thresh wheat
- They threshed wheat by hand in the old days.
- thresh about
- The child threshed about in the pool.
- thresh out
- The team threshed out a plan after hours of talks.
- threshing machine
- A threshing machine stood in the barn.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
Commonly confused: thresh or thrash?
thresh vs thrash
Thrash means to beat someone or move violently and is often confused with thresh; the farm sense takes thresh only.
Practice
Before the machine existed, farmers would ___ the harvested wheat with flails to free the grain.
Choose one answer.
To thresh is to beat harvested plants to release the grain. Sow means to plant seed, which is done before harvest.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “thresh”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.