FromMiddle Englishsyften, fromOld Englishsiftan, fromProto-West Germanic*siftijan.

• IPA^(key):/sɪft/

• Audio(US):

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• Rhymes:-ɪft

sift (third-person singular simple presentsifts,present participlesifting,simple past and past participlesifted)

1. (transitive) Tosieve orstrain (something).
2. (transitive) Toseparate orscatter (things) as if by sieving.
3. (transitive) Toexamine (something)carefully.
   1. (archaic ordated,transitive) Toscrutinize (someone or something) carefully so as to find the truth.
      • 1595 December 9 (first known performance),William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, inMr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London:[…]Isaac Iaggard, andEd[ward] Blount, published1623,→OCLC,[Act I, scene i],page23, column 1:

        As neere as I couldſift him on that argument,
        On ſome apparant danger ſeene in him,
        Aym‘d at your Highneſſe, no inueterate malice.

      • 1748,David Hume,Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral, London: Oxford University Press, published1973,§ 28:

        But if we still carry on oursifting humour, and ask,What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience ? this implies a new question.

      • 1764,Horace Walpole,The Castle of Otranto,Strawberry Hill Press:

        It immediately occurred to him tosift her on the subject of Isabella and Theodore.

   2. (transitive) [withthrough] Tocarefully go through a set of objects, or a collection of information, in order to find something.
      • 1996, Timothy B. Savage,Power Through Weakness: Paul's Understanding of the Christian Ministry in 2 Corinthians, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, page70:

        Sifting through the work of great orators like Philostratus and Quintilian they identify numerous examples of classical irony, metaphor, comparison, etc. which are missing in Paul.

4. (computing,dated,transitive) To move data records up in memory to make space to insert further records.

sift (pluralsifts)

1. An act of sifting.

• The utensil used for sifting is asieve, and not asift.

• FIST,FITs,FiTs,ITFs,TIFs,fist,fits