Gleaners

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who gather leftover crops from fields after a harvest has been completed
2. People who collect or extract information and insights gradually or carefully, often from various sources
3. Those who meticulously search for and gather small amounts or remnants of something valuable from a larger whole

Etymology: Gleaners were once the poor who followed harvesters to collect the stalks and grain left in the field. Ancient Hebrew law made this a right: Leviticus instructed farmers not to harvest the edges of their fields or go back for fallen grain, and the book of Ruth shows a widow gleaning in a field owned by Boaz. The noun is the plural of "gleaner," an agent form of "glean," which English took from Old French "glener," meaning to gather grain after the reapers. The French verb probably derives from Late Latin "glenare," but its ultimate origin is uncertain. The figurative sense, collecting scattered scraps of information carefully from many sources, follows naturally from that original picture. Like the gleaners in the field, the person gathers what others have passed over.