What's the difference between blow and winnow?

Blow


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To flower; to blossom; to bloom.
  • (v. t.) To cause to blossom; to put forth (blossoms or flowers).
  • (n.) A blossom; a flower; also, a state of blossoming; a mass of blossoms.
  • (n.) A forcible stroke with the hand, fist, or some instrument, as a rod, a club, an ax, or a sword.
  • (n.) A sudden or forcible act or effort; an assault.
  • (n.) The infliction of evil; a sudden calamity; something which produces mental, physical, or financial suffering or loss (esp. when sudden); a buffet.
  • (v. i.) To produce a current of air; to move, as air, esp. to move rapidly or with power; as, the wind blows.
  • (v. i.) To send forth a forcible current of air, as from the mouth or from a pair of bellows.
  • (v. i.) To breathe hard or quick; to pant; to puff.
  • (v. i.) To sound on being blown into, as a trumpet.
  • (v. i.) To spout water, etc., from the blowholes, as a whale.
  • (v. i.) To be carried or moved by the wind; as, the dust blows in from the street.
  • (v. i.) To talk loudly; to boast; to storm.
  • (v. t.) To force a current of air upon with the mouth, or by other means; as, to blow the fire.
  • (v. t.) To drive by a current air; to impel; as, the tempest blew the ship ashore.
  • (v. t.) To cause air to pass through by the action of the mouth, or otherwise; to cause to sound, as a wind instrument; as, to blow a trumpet; to blow an organ.
  • (v. t.) To clear of contents by forcing air through; as, to blow an egg; to blow one's nose.
  • (v. t.) To burst, shatter, or destroy by an explosion; -- usually with up, down, open, or similar adverb; as, to blow up a building.
  • (v. t.) To spread by report; to publish; to disclose.
  • (v. t.) To form by inflation; to swell by injecting air; as, to blow bubbles; to blow glass.
  • (v. t.) To inflate, as with pride; to puff up.
  • (v. t.) To put out of breath; to cause to blow from fatigue; as, to blow a horse.
  • (v. t.) To deposit eggs or larvae upon, or in (meat, etc.).
  • (n.) A blowing, esp., a violent blowing of the wind; a gale; as, a heavy blow came on, and the ship put back to port.
  • (n.) The act of forcing air from the mouth, or through or from some instrument; as, to give a hard blow on a whistle or horn; to give the fire a blow with the bellows.
  • (n.) The spouting of a whale.
  • (n.) A single heat or operation of the Bessemer converter.
  • (n.) An egg, or a larva, deposited by a fly on or in flesh, or the act of depositing it.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Certainly, Saunders did not land a single blow that threatened to stop his opponent, although he took quite a few himself that threatened his titles in the final few rounds.
  • (2) The ruling centre-right coalition government of Angela Merkel was dealt a blow by voters in a critical regional election on Sunday after the centre-left opposition secured a wafer-thin victory, setting the scene for a tension-filled national election in the autumn when everything will be up for grabs.
  • (3) "The government should be doing all it can to put the UK at the forefront of this energy revolution not blowing hot and cold on the issue.
  • (4) Rapid swelling of the knee following a blow or twisting injury is considered a significant injury.
  • (5) Drainage of contrast medium from the maxillary sinus during blowing and sniffing was studied by cine-roentgenography in 11 healthy subjects.
  • (6) It would cost their own businesses hundreds of millions of pounds in transaction costs, it would blow a massive hole in their balance of payments, it would leave them having to pick up the entirety of UK debt.
  • (7) The phrase “self-inflicted blow” was one he used repeatedly, along with the word “glib” – applied to his Vote Leave opponents.
  • (8) Losing Murphy is a blow to the Oscars which has struggled to liven up its image amid a general decline in its TV ratings over the last couple of decades and a rush of awards shows that appeal to younger crowds, such as the MTV Movie Awards.
  • (9) Hagan’s defeat came as a shock and a heavy blow for the Democratic party in North Carolina, a purple state that now has no Democratic senator or governor for the first time in 30 years.
  • (10) The case of a 32-year-old man who suffered a blow to his left supraorbital region and eyebrow in an automatic closing door is reported to draw attention to the uncommon but trivial nature of this injury which may result in profound visual loss.
  • (11) It's almost starting to feel like we're back in the good old days of July 2005, when Paris lost out to London in the battle to stage the 2012 Olympic Games, a defeat immediately interpreted by France as a bitter blow to Gallic ideals of fair play and non-commercialism and yet another undeserved triumph for the underhand, free-market manoeuvrings of perfidious Albion.
  • (12) A rather pessimistic wind is blowing over cancer chemotherapy, while a not very objective enthusiasm for second generation immunotherapy is raising its head.
  • (13) The departure of Emmerson – who said in a statement that no allegations had been put to him – is a huge blow.
  • (14) On second impacts, the GSI rose considerably because the shell and liner of the DH-151 cracked and the suspension of the "141" stretched during the first blow.
  • (15) The files, which were made available to the Guardian , the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops.
  • (16) Maybe there was a wish to go for these stronger story formulations, more extreme situations to try to get the energy up to comfortably blow the lid off.” Miller pointed out to Franzen that he has developed something of a reputation as a misanthrope.
  • (17) Pure blow-out fracture or comminuted facial fracture, double vision and amnesia emerged as additional factors which yielded an efficient scoring system with a sensitivity of 89% and specificity of 90% for the population upon which it was based.
  • (18) It would strike a blow against its excessively adversarial ways of working, the two sides of a divided house braying at each other across the floor.
  • (19) However, a no show from the leader of the Commonwealth's biggest member would be a huge blow to the credibility of the organisation.
  • (20) All of which would be perfectly normal (after all, if there's anything valencianos love more than blowing off their fingers, it's complaining about their team) but for one thing: it was only just after half past nine and there was still an hour to go against hated rivals Real Madrid.

Winnow


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To separate chaff from grain.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Winnowing by embiotocids is characterized by premaxillary protrusions repeated cyclically with reduced oral gape.
  • (2) It’s a remorseless process of winnowing down, from which only one worthy champion can emerge* and the Guardian is here the whole way through, with spoiler alerts roughly every minute, having read the book (Klinsi turns out to have been a wolf all along...) One of tonight’s teams is playing roughly a game a minute at the moment — Confederations Cup and Gold Cup scheduling saw Jamaica’s game against Mexico moved to earlier this week — and that 1-0 loss was the first of three games the Jamaicans will play in eight days (Mexico are doing the same thing).
  • (3) Winnowed down by sector , the figures narrow further.
  • (4) evangelical votes chart In 2016, religious activists and political operatives insist, the support of Christian voters will be critical in the early-voting states of Iowa and South Carolina, where evangelical leaders believe they can best winnow a deep Republican field to take on Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic frontrunner.
  • (5) Or, before the study began, early deaths may have winnowed susceptibles from the two older cohorts.
  • (6) It’s all about how much of a horrible, fascist, racist, misogynist Trump is.” On her own feed, Constantin found herself winnowing down her friends in order to avoid arguments.
  • (7) Several surfperches (Embiotocidae), including the black surfperch, Embiotoca jacksoni, exhibit a specialized prey handling behavior known as winnowing, in which ingested food and non-nutritive debris are separated within the oropharyngeal cavity.
  • (8) A process that was intended to winnow out the unusually crowded Republican field before primary voting begins in February looks likely to keep pundits guessing to the last: chewing up and spitting out new winners and losers almost every time they take to the stage.
  • (9) Scott Walker shocks Republicans with dropout call to gang up on Donald Trump Read more Afterwards, on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele kindly speculated that Walker might also have been throwing a bone to his fellow Wisconsinite and current Chairman Reince Priebus, who wants to winnow the primary field.
  • (10) Under these circumstances low fitness genotypes are winnowed from the population by natural selection.
  • (11) The neglect of the national game has been deep and persistent and the winnowing of our skills base complete and utter.
  • (12) The respondent and co-respondent do not appear, and we have to winnow the matter as best we may.
  • (13) But the straw poll’s winnowing effect also has advantages – especially for those on the social conservative wing of the party.
  • (14) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Arctic warming hits new record in 2015, says ocean watchdog Noaa – video Not only is the ice winnowing away, it is becoming younger – Noaa’s analysis of satellite data shows that 70% of the ice pack in March was composed of first-year ice, with just 3% of the ice older than four years.
  • (15) 102 species and 2 species varieties belonging to 36 genera were collected from combine harvester wheat and sorghum dusts and from the atmosphere of hay or winnow sites.
  • (16) Winnowing is believed to play an important role in the partitioning of food resources among sympatric embiotocids.
  • (17) We have come to the end of privacy; our private lives, as our grandparents would have recognised them, have been winnowed away to the realm of the shameful and secret.
  • (18) Hand it over to private companies and they will swoop in with their efficiency, their economies of scale, their incentives and their competitiveness, winnowing it down into a dart of perfectly targeted public spending.
  • (19) That private sense of: "You're someone I would like to spend time with", with as opposed to I winnowed you out in a group of a lot of other people.
  • (20) A post-mortem by party officials after Romney lost the 2012 presidential election to Barack Obama blamed a protracted primary campaign among Republicans for weakening their eventual candidate and recommended a shorter winnowing period.