sift
pronunciation
How to pronounce sift in British English:
UK [sɪft]
How to pronounce sift in American English:
US [sɪft]
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- Verb:
- move as if through a sieve
- separate by passing through a sieve or other straining device to separate out coarser elements
- check and sort carefully
- distinguish and separate out
Word Origin
- sift (v.)
- Old English siftan "pass (something) through a sieve," from Proto-Germanic *sib- (cognates: Dutch ziften, Middle Low German sichten, German sichten "to sift;" see sieve (n.)). Intransitive sense "to pass loosely or fall scatteredly" is from 1590s. Metaphoric sense of "look carefully through" first recorded 1530s. Related: Sifted; sifting.
Example
- 1. Computers can sift and analyze mountains of that data .
- 2. In a bowl , sift flour and baking powder and stir through rolled oats .
- 3. They sift old pieces of food from the oil and then resell it to restaurants and vendors looking to cut costs .
- 4. Carlo ratti , who heads the sensible city lab at the massachusetts institute of technology , was one of the first to sift through the data produced by telecoms networks .
- 5. It 's also difficult to sift through apps .