separate the wheat from the chaff

Related to separate the wheat from the chaff: separate the sheep from the goats

separate the wheat from the chaff

To separate the good or valuable from that which is inferior. With so many manuscripts arriving daily, it's a challenge to separate the wheat from the chaff and spot the really exceptional ones.
See also: chaff, separate, wheat
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

separate the wheat from the chaff

Prov. to separate what is useful or valuable from what is worthless. When it comes to books, time will separate the wheat from the chaff. Good books will have lasting appeal, and the rest will be forgotten. The managers hoped that the new procedure for evaluating employees would separate the wheat from the chaff.
See also: chaff, separate, wheat
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

separate wheat from chaff

Sort the valuable from the worthless, as in I hope we'll get a preview of the auction so we can separate the wheat from the chaff. This idiom alludes to the ancient practice of winnowing grain.
See also: chaff, separate, wheat
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

separate the wheat from the chaff

or

separate the grain from the chaff

If you separate the wheat from the chaff or separate the grain from the chaff, you decide which things or people in a group are good or necessary, and which are not. The first two rounds of the contest separate the wheat from the chaff. Judges should not forget that when you separate the wheat from the chaff, you should try to keep the wheat. Note: You can use sort or sort out instead of separate. It's up to Wilkinson to sort out the wheat from the chaff and get the team back to the top of the table. Note: You can refer to the good or necessary things or people in a group as wheat or grain, and to the others as chaff. There's so little wheat in all this chaff. Was there rather less grain than chaff? Note: `Chaff' refers to the outer covers of wheat or other cereal which are separated from the grain by a process called winnowing. In the Bible (Matthew 3:12; Luke 3:17), John the Baptist uses the image of someone separating the wheat from the chaff to describe how Jesus will separate those who go to heaven from those who go to hell.
See also: chaff, separate, wheat
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

separate (or sort) the wheat from the chaff

distinguish valuable people or things from worthless ones.
Chaff is the husks of corn or other seed separated out when the grain is winnowed or threshed. The metaphorical contrast between wheat and chaff is drawn in several passages in the Bible, for example in Matthew 3:12: ‘he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire’.
See also: chaff, separate, wheat
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

sort out/separate the ˌwheat from the ˈchaff

separate people or things of a better quality from those of a lower quality: When all the applications came in, our first task was to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Chaff is the outer covering of the seeds of grain such as wheat, which is separated from the grain before it is used.
See also: chaff, out, separate, sort, wheat
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

separate the wheat from the chaff, to

To sort the valuable from the worthless. The analogy here is to the age-old practice of winnowing grain, formerly done by hand and now mechanized. The term persists nevertheless. G. B. McCutcheon used it in Anderson Crow (1920): “They separated the wheat from the chaff.”
See also: separate, wheat
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • separate the wheat from the chaff, to
  • separate wheat from chaff
  • sort out/separate the wheat from the chaff
  • separate
  • separate out
  • under separate cover
  • chaff
  • cull the herd
  • furthest
  • be far/further/furthest removed from something
References in periodicals archive
"My role here is really to separate the wheat from the chaff," she says.
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Of course, no one will know which aspects of CAM really work and which don't unless medical schools help separate the wheat from the chaff. But already there are complaints about the research output from both the Osher Institute and Eisenberg's previous center (which was established in 1994).
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A cabinet spokesman said that the tax would separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of the level of participation of manufacturers and retailers in the recycling effort.
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If you are interested in how the criminal mind functions from within, this book may be just your cup of tea, but you will need to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. Some of these people lay it on pretty thick.
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They rely heavily on the recommendations of others in the industry to separate the wheat from the chaff. And, to date, a major problem has been that the majority of venture capitalists who invest in technology start-ups are not people of color.
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"In a day when the work ethic of many job candidates is so poor, it is important to separate the wheat from the chaff in the hiring process," Graybar says.
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"Far from outmoding our traditional skills, the explosion of affordable information has placed a premium on professionals who can tap vast data bases, separate the wheat from the chaff, and create competitive advantage for our traditional clients and others," he added.
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The trick is to separate the wheat from the chaff. As O'Keefe points out, "We'll be using the benchmark to identify choices that are driven by unique business requirements versus those that just evolved or developed over time and happen-stance."
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But that's what will separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of surviving in the property management business.
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He said at the moment, all his 32 players are at par but the ensuing training sessions will help them separate the wheat from the chaff and spot the really exceptional ones for the Mukono assignment.
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The American owners are wanting to thicken the squad but, in doing so, you've got to separate the wheat from the chaff.
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This increases the value of editors and publishers who can be trusted to separate the wheat from the chaff. With The Essential Tom Marshall, The Porcupine's Quill has once again shown its ability to select and present the best work of poets whose words might otherwise be lost in the electronic ether.
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