Picture a hand going through a big pile, one item at a time, keeping some and setting others aside. That sorting hand is what the word has always been about: its older French and Latin meant gather, collect, select. Every modern use is that same hand — what changes is which side of the pile matters. Sometimes we follow the things picked out and kept; sometimes we follow the ones picked out and taken away.
From the word’s history
From Middle English cullen, from Old French cuillir ('collect, gather, select'), from Latin colligo ('gather together'). The selecting hand in the modern word is the original meaning, not a later image.
來自中古英文 cullen，再往前是古法文 cuillir（收集、聚攏、挑選），源頭是拉丁文 colligō（聚攏在一起）。所以現在這個字裡那隻在挑的手，本來就是它最早的意思，不是後來才加上去的想像。
Wiktionary (kaikki extract, source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:608991798:23006), 'cull' etymology 1
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。