glean

英 [ɡliːn] 美 [ɡliːn]

v.拾落穗；收集

◉Etymology

“Glean”一词源自拉丁语“glennare”，意为“收集”。在14世纪初，它经古法语“glener”（现代法语为“glaner”）进入英语，原指“通过收购来收集”或“艰难地凑齐、筹集”，特别是指收集收割后留在地里的谷物。因此，“glean”的基本含义是“拾取（散落在田地里的谷物等）。

◉外刊例句

① 《经济学人》, 2023-05-10

The investor tried to glean insights from the company’s annual report.

投资者试图从公司的年报中收集洞见。

② 《纽约时报》, 2023-07-25

She spent hours gleaning information on the internet for her research project.

她花了数小时在网上收集研究项目的信息。

◉经典名著

《悲惨世界》（Les Misérables）, Victor Hugo

He seemed to know, and he sometimes said in covert words, that someone had gleaned certain information in a certain district about a family which had disappeared.

他仿佛已经知情，有时他遮遮掩掩地说，已有人在某地搜集过某个消失了的人家的某些情况。

◉Usage Examples

(1) What useful thing can you glean from that?

(2) He likes to glean the bamboo telegraph.

(1) 哪些有益的事情你能收集到的？

(2) 他喜欢收集小道消息。

◉Usage Notes

Seeing a word in context lets you glean information about how it's used. Glean means to gather bit by bit. You might say, "I couldn't understand her accent, but from what I could glean, she needs money to take the bus."

In the Book of Ruth in The Bible, Ruth meets her future husband when she asked permission to glean from his fields, which means follow the grain cutters, gathering the seed kernels that have fallen on the ground. For the very poor at this time, gleaning was often means of getting food.

◉Colins

1. [VERB 动词]耐心学习，仔细收集（信息、知识等） If you glean something such as information or knowledge, you learn or collect it slowly and patiently, and perhaps indirectly. [V n from n] [V n]

At present we're gleaning information from all sources...

目前，我们正从各种渠道收集信息。

10,000 pages of evidence were gleaned from hundreds and hundreds of interviews.

从无数次的采访中收集到了长达一万页的证据。