glean

glean from (something)

1. To take that which has been left behind, usually grain remaining after a harvest. A noun or pronoun can be used between "glean" and "from." How much grain were you able to glean from the fields today?
2. To learn something from a particular source, often secondhand or piecemeal. A noun or pronoun can be used between "glean" and "from." I missed the meeting yesterday, so tell me what you were able to glean from his presentation. What have you been able to glean from the rumors going around?
See also: glean
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

glean something from something

 
1. Lit. to gather the leftovers of something from something; to gather the ears of grain left in a field after a harvest. The poor people gleaned their entire living from what was left in the fields. We will have to go out and glean something from the fields.
2. and glean something from someone Fig. to figure something out from bits of gossip. I was able to glean some important news from Tommy. Tell me the news you gleaned from the people in town.
See also: glean
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

glean from

v.
1. To learn something or figure something out using some information gathered bit by bit: We were able to glean information about their past from the conversation we overheard. I gleaned from these various articles that there was serious trouble brewing in the government.
2. To gather grain left behind by reapers: The farmers have gleaned their final harvests from their fields of wheat.
See also: glean
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • angle
  • angling
  • not do (someone or oneself) any favors
  • involve with
  • involve with (someone or something)
  • involved with
  • arrange for
  • arrange for some time
  • arrange some music for
  • ask back
References in periodicals archive
As Table 1 indicates, Project GLEAN succeeded in distributing nearly 55 tons of food--food that otherwise would have been wasted--over the past two years.
Project GLEAN: implementing a school-based food distribution program
"Finesse and Glean are in the same category as Xerox[R] and Kleenex[R] for wheat growers in Kansas.
`RAVE ON, IT'S A CRAZY FEELING'
The couple will garden and glean as long as they're physically able, LaKay said.
Gleaned goodies stretch the budget
The agency plans to propose a rule this summer to ease the reporting requirements for top performers regulated by maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards under the Glean Air Act, as well as allow these facilities to store hazardous waste on site for an additional 90 days, provided they have the added protection of secondary containment.
U.S. EPA to reward facilities named top environmental performers. (Washington Alert)
The prey group was subdivided into two subgroups (high patrol and swoops) and the insectivorous group subdivided into five subgroups (swoops, ground glean, aerial, bark glean and foliage).
Avian dynamics of a Chihuahuan Desert creosotebush (Larrea tridentata) community in Nuevo Leon, Mexico
But anyone in the "subprime" or "B-C" mortgage business trying to glean any knowledge from the history of this market prior to last August would have a very tough time.
Mortgage bankers need to reflect on recent history
The careful reader can glean much of Garvey's background and personality from his debates with W.E.B.
The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey
To approach the book as a "quick read" would be a disservice because there is so much to glean.
Get Over It and on With It! How to Get Up When Life Knocks You Down
For those interested in new theories of landscape design, The Landscape Approach is a must to glean the philosophies, the new perceptual approaches and paradigms which characterize end of twentieth-century landscape architecture.
THE LANDSCAPE APPROACH
But these strong gestures don't always blend easily and, fighting each other, can make mood, ideas, and feeling hard to glean.
Lines Contemporary Ballet
"I am thrilled to work with the stunning team of Anne and Ellen," Stone said in a statement, "and I hope to glean a little something extra about comedy from these two experts."
The girls of summer
And there are new facts to glean. I never knew that Felix Samuely designed the skeletal framework to hold the ex-Chartres stained glass for Wallace Harrison's church at Stanford, Connecticut.
'Contemporary': The Architecture and Interiors of the 1950s
Although a few small magnetic resonance probes exist for field applications such as checking tires' stiffness, those sensors glean only crude information from their subjects compared with what conventional scanners can do, according to Bernhard Blumich of RWTH Aachen University in Germany.
Open sesame: portable devices may achieve magnetic resonance views
California's La Brea tar pits became a tomb for many predators and scavengers, and scientists there have examined the creatures' remains to glean hints about ancient diets.
... and the big bird that didn't
Images from some of the most-popular archaeological sites are presented as examples of how to glean information about the history, social structure, and funerary beliefs of the people who were there.
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Practical Guide