Sift

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Sift \Sift\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Sifted}; p. pr. & vb. n.
     {Sifting}.] [AS. siftan, from sife sieve. [root]151a. See
     {Sieve}.]
     1. 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.


        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. To separate or part as if with a sieve.
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              When yellow sands are sifted from below,
              The glittering billows give a golden show. --Dryden.
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     3. To examine critically or minutely; to scrutinize.
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              Sifting the very utmost sentence and syllable.
                                                    --Hooker.
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              Opportunity I here have had
              To try thee, sift thee.               --Milton.
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              Let him but narrowly sift his ideas.  --I. Taylor.
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     {To sift out}, to search out with care, as if by sifting.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  sift
       v 1: move as if through a sieve; "The soldiers sifted through the
            woods"
       2: separate by passing through a sieve or other straining
          device to separate out coarser elements; "sift the flour"
          [syn: {sieve}, {strain}]
       3: check and sort carefully; "sift the information" [syn: {sieve}]
       4: distinguish and separate out; "sift through the job
          candidates" [syn: {sieve}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  150 Moby Thesaurus words for "sift":
     air, analyze, appraise, assess, assort, bolt, canvass, catalog,
     categorize, choose, choose out, clarify, class, classify, clear,
     collate, comb, comment upon, consider, contradistinguish,
     controvert, cordon, cordon off, cull, cull out, deal with, debate,
     decide between, decrassify, deliberate, deliberate upon,
     delve into, demarcate, demark, depurate, differentiate, dig into,
     discourse about, discriminate, discuss, distill, distinguish,
     divide, draw the line, edulcorate, elute, essentialize, evaluate,
     examine, excerpt, exchange views, explore, extract, factor, fathom,
     filter, filtrate, gauge, ghettoize, gin, glean, go into, gradate,
     grade, group, handle, handpick, identify, indagate, inquire into,
     insulate, investigate, isolate, keep apart, keep aside,
     knock around, lay aside, leach, lixiviate, look into,
     make a selection, mark the interface, pass under review, peer into,
     percolate, pick, pick out, plumb, poke into, probe, prospect,
     pry into, purify, put aside, quarantine, rank, rap, reason,
     reason about, reason the point, rectify, refine, review, riddle,
     screen, screen out, scrutinize, search into, seclude, segregate,
     select, separate, set a limit, set apart, set aside, set off,
     sever, severalize, sieve, sieve out, sift out, single out, size,
     sort, sort out, sound, spiritualize, split hairs, strain, study,
     subdivide, sublimate, sublime, subordinate, subtilize, take up,
     talk, talk about, talk of, talk over, thrash, thrash out, thresh,
     thresh out, treat, try, ventilate, weed out, weigh, winnow
  
  

From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:

  SIFT
       Software Implemeted Fault Tolerance (HIFT)
       
       

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  SIFT
       
          SHARE Internal Fortran Translator.  Translation utility
          designed for converting Fortran II to Fortran IV.  The word
          "sift" was often used as a verb to describe converting code
          from one language to another.  Sammet 1969, p.153.