To cull means to reduce the size of a group by removing certain members, usually the weakest or least desirable ones. A farmer might cull a herd of cattle by selling off animals that aren't producing enough milk or growing well. Wildlife managers sometimes cull deer populations when they grow too large for the available food and habitat.

You could cull the best flowers from a garden or cull interesting facts from a book. But today, culling usually means removing unwanted members of a group to improve what remains.

In everyday usage, you might hear someone say they're culling their collection of old toys or books, meaning they're going through and getting rid of ones they no longer need. A teacher might cull outdated worksheets from filing cabinets. The word suggests a careful, selective process: you're making deliberate choices about what stays and what goes based on specific criteria, examining each item individually rather than discarding things randomly.