[f. WINNOW v. + -ER1.]
1. One who winnows; a person engaged in winnowing; also fig. (cf. next 1 b).
1382. [see WINNOW v. 1 b].
1538. Elyot, Ventilator, a vanner or wynnower of corne.
1548. Udall, Erasm. Par. Luke, Pref. B ij b. As a wynnower pourgeth the chaffe from the corne.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, V. 497. As in sacred floores of barnes, vpon corne-winnowers flies The chaffe.
1765. Museum Rust., IV. 209. The seed carried into an heap near the winnowers is shook up a little by a caver.
1849. Whittier, Leg. St. Mark, xiv. Scattered … Like chaff before the winnower’s fan.
1871. R. B. Vaughan, S. Thomas of Aquin, II. 645–6. He [Plato] did not take for granted, like the Sophist…. He was a winnower and a sifter.
1915. F. S. Oliver, Ordeal by Battle, II vii. 176. It [war] is a great winnower of true men from shams, of staunch men from boasters and blowers of their own trumpets.
2. An apparatus for winnowing; a winnowing-machine.
1605–6. in Archdeaconry of Stow Wills 1603–6, lf. 110 (MS.). To my sonne Thomas Collinsonne my wyndyers wth the best of my tooles.
1862. J. Wilson, Farming, 164. The winnowers used in such cases do not differ in construction from those worked by hand.
1833. Cassell’s Fam. Mag., Aug., 528/1. The beans [of coffee are] then put through a winnower.
1890. Engineer, 12 Dec., 472/1. Threshing machines are popular here because the grain does not have to run through a winnower.
