cull

Etymology 1

From Middle English cullen, cuilen, coilen, from Old French cuillir (“collect, gather, select”), from Latin colligō (“gather together”). Doublet of coil.

verb

1. To pick or take someone or something (from a larger group).
   1984, cover star: JOE DALLESANDRO culled from Andy Warhol's FLESH — anonymous; sleeve notes from The Smiths' eponymous album
2. To gather, collect.
   Chaucer's prose Tale of Melibee […] is a dialectal homily of moral debate, exhibiting a learned store of ethical precept culled from many ancient authorities. 1951, Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Nevill Coghill, The Canterbury Tales: Translated into Modern English (Penguin Classics), Penguin Books, published 1977, page 202
3. To select animals from a group and then kill them in order to reduce the numbers of the group in a controlled manner.
4. (nonstandard, euphemistic) To kill (animals etc).
5. To lay off in order to reduce the size of, get rid of.
6. (computer graphics) To selectively not render or process certain objects, such as polygons.
   Will cull any objects further from the camera than a given distance. When used in combination with camera frustum culling, this can be used to avoid culling nearby objects that are outside the camera frustum, but still visible in reflections. It is also useful to cull small objects far from the camera. 17 July 2023, Blender Foundation, "Blender 3.6 Manual"
   w:back-face culling

noun

1. A selection.
2. An organised killing of selected animals.
   It seemed that the sun shone and all was right in our Blakean islands until the government began to set in motion its promised cull of badgers in an effort to control bovine TB. Salvation for brock came in the form of an online petition started by Queen guitarist Brian May, the rising costs of the programme and the weather. 2012-12-21, Isobel Montgomery, “A year that showed the best and worst of Britain”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 2, page 31
3. (farming, agriculture) An individual animal selected to be killed, or item of produce to be discarded.
4. (seafood industry) A lobster having only one claw.
5. A piece unfit for inclusion within a larger group; an inferior specimen.

Etymology 2

Perhaps an abbreviation of cully.

noun

1. (slang, dialectal) A fool, gullible person; a dupe.
   Follow but my counsel, and I will show you a way to empty the pocket of a queer cull without any danger of the nubbing cheat. 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society, published 1973, page 307