weed out — remove the unwanted (figurative, people/things)
phrasal verbC1IELTS 7+neutraloccasional
to get rid of people or things that are not wanted or not good enough, especially to improve a group, system, or process.
Say it like a native
Textbook The process serves to eliminate unsuitable candidates.
Native The process weeds out the weaker applicants.
'Weed out' is the idiomatic verb for filtering out the unwanted; 'eliminate unsuitable candidates' is formal.
Pattern: weed out + noun / weed out + the + group
In use
- The company is trying to weed out applicants who don't meet the basic requirements.work
- In my opinion, universities should have a process to weed out students who are not genuinely interested in their studies, so that resources can be focused on those who are committed.IELTS speaking
Common mistake
✗ We need to weed out of the bad ones.
✓ We need to weed out the bad ones.
'Weed out' takes the object directly — no 'of'.
Common collocations
weed out + unwanted— the weak ones, errors, time-wasters, the unfit
Don't confuse it
Unlike the literal sense of removing weeds from a garden (B1/B2), this sense is figurative and used for people, ideas, or things that are unwanted or unsuitable in a group or process.