Pulling out the plants you did not plant. In a garden, weeds are whatever grows where you don't want it — grass in the flower bed, vines through the fence — and weeding is the slow work of removing them, usually by hand or with a small tool. It is the -ing form of the verb weed, and it works both as an ongoing action ("she was weeding the vegetable patch") and as a name for the job itself ("weeding takes me all Saturday"). You can weed a place (weed the garden) or weed out the unwanted things (weed out the dandelions). That second pattern, "weed out", has grown far past gardening: companies weed out weak applications, a coach weeds out players who don't turn up. Same picture — remove what doesn't belong so the good ones have room. Librarians even use "weeding" for taking old books off the shelves. The tone is plain and everyday, a bit tiring, a bit satisfying.