Sift
[sɪft]
Definition
(verb.) separate by passing through a sieve or other straining device to separate out coarser elements; 'sift the flour'.
(verb.) move as if through a sieve; 'The soldiers sifted through the woods'.
Typed by Jerry--From WordNet
Definition
(v. t.) To separate with a sieve, as the fine part of a substance from the coarse; as, to sift meal or flour; to sift powder; to sift sand or lime.
(v. t.) To separate or part as if with a sieve.
(v. t.) To examine critically or minutely; to scrutinize.
Checked by Ida
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. [1]. Bolt.[2]. Scrutinize, probe, fathom, sound, investigate, canvass, discuss, examine critically, look into, follow up, inquire into.
Typed by Alice
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Screen, analyze, scrutinize, robe, examine_critically, investigate, winnow,sort
ANT:Confound, fuse, confuse, amalgamate, conglomerate, compound
Typed by Gus
Definition
v.t. to separate with or as with a sieve: to examine closely.—n. Sift′er one who or that which sifts.
Typist: Thaddeus
Examples
- I shall sift the matter to the bottom, and put a stop to such pranks at once. Louisa May Alcott. Little Women.
- That's why I want to sift the matter to the bottom. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
- Satan desires to have ye, and sift ye as wheat. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
- The meal was then bolted, and the tailings, consisting of bran, middlings and adherent flour, again sifted and re-ground. William Henry Doolittle. Inventions in the Century.
- When salt is sifted it is ready for packing in bags or packages suitable for shipment to the consumer. Various. The Wonder Book of Knowledge.
- Coal-dust, vegetable-dust, bone-dust, crockery dust, rough dust and sifted dust,--all manner of Dust. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- But, eyes no less rapacious had watched the growth of the Mounds in years bygone, and had vigilantly sifted the dust of which they were composed. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- We have carefully sifted the statement he has addressed to us; and here it is at your service. Wilkie Collins. The Moonstone.
- About sixty men were sifted to get twenty. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- What others may have done, bearing directly or collaterally on the subject, in print, is carefully considered and sifted to the point of exhaustion. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- Miss Ophelia lifted out the sifting papers of sweet herbs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
- Consequently the testing and sifting function of education only shows to which one of three classes an individual belongs. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- Ducks, like whales, subsist by sifting the mud and water; and the family has sometimes been called Criblatores, or sifters. Charles Darwin. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
- Now, it's too late for me to begin shovelling and sifting at alphabeds and grammar-books. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- Because I suppose, sir, that what was found, was found in the sorting and sifting. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- It is one of those cases where the art of the reasoner should be used rather for the sifting of details than for the acquiring of fresh evidence. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
- The notes I have here made will want sifting, and you can, if you please, extract them under my direction. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- If the devil sifts you through a hair sieve, he won't find one. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Typist: Terrence