chew the meat and spit out the bones

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

chew the meat and spit out the bones (third-person singular simple present chews the meat and spits out the bones, present participle chewing the meat and spitting out the bones, simple past and past participle chewed the meat and spat out the bones or chewed the meat and spit out the bones)

1. (idiomatic) To take in a great deal of information and selectively disregard some of it as invalid or inapplicable.
   • 2002, A. Frank Goepel, A Realm Without Rules, page 116:

     Do not swallow every story that is told. There may be a grain of truth somewhere in all the myths, but chew the meat and spit out the bones.

See also

• separate the wheat from the chaff