Threshing

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The action of separating kernels from harvested crop plants involves the removal of unwanted materials like stalks and leaves
2. In agricultural practices, this refers to the technique used for obtaining seeds from plants while discarding the residual parts
3. The process of extracting edible seeds from cereal crops by removing the inedible stalks and husks

Etymology: "Threshing" is about as plain as English etymology gets: it is the verbal noun of "thresh", formed by adding the suffix "-ing" to that verb. The verb itself is Old English "therscan", which is where the real story lies, since the word has been beating grain for over a thousand years without changing its basic job. The Middle English form "thresshyng" carries the same sense it has today, so the noun passed down almost unchanged from the verb. Its meaning is fixed by the work itself: striking or beating cereal stalks so that the grain separates from the husks and straw. The shape of the word therefore records a simple act of farm labour rather than any shift in sense.

Synonyms: harvesting, winnowing