thin the herd

present singular third person thins the herd · participle present thinning the herd · participle past thinned the herd · past thinned the herd

1. idiomaticto cull, to reduce the size of a group

   “If we have a chance, catch one of them out alone, we'll take it, thin the herd a little.” Harv snorted. “Herd? A cripple, a woman, and a coward. No herd to thin there. I'd like to keep that woman alive for a while, though.

   2010, Mary Connealy, The Wildflower Bride, Barbour Publishing, →ISBN, page 291

   2 more examples

   Early on, if we came into a pot we came in for about three times the big blind because we generally wanted to thin the herd. Now we don't have to worry about that so much, for the herd will thin itself. It's smaller to begin with, since three or four players are gone, plus we're starting to get within sniffing distance of the money, so our foes will naturally start to tighten up.

   2006, John Vorhaus, Killer Poker Online/2: Advanced Strategies For Crushing The Internet Game, Kensington Publishing, →ISBN, page 140

   Unless China could successfully neutralise Taiwan's ability to 'thin the herd' by taking out its air bases, its fixed and mobile land-based missile launchers (such as RBS-17 coastal-defence missiles mounted on trucks), its missile-armed Apache helicopters and its swarming fast-attack ships, its invasion will be in trouble.

   2018, A. Trevor Thrall, Benjamin H. Friedman, US Grand Strategy in the 21st Century: The Case For Restraint, Routledge, →ISBN, page 218

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see thin, the, herd.