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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A porous material through which a liquid or gas is passed in order to separate the fluid from suspended particulate matter.
  2. n. A device containing such a material, especially one used to extract impurities from air or water.
  3. n. Any of various electric, electronic, acoustic, or optical devices used to reject signals, vibrations, or radiations of certain frequencies while allowing others to pass.
  4. n. A colored glass or other transparent material used to select the wavelengths of light allowed to reach a photosensitive material.
  5. n. Computer Science A program or routine that blocks access to data that meet a particular criterion: a Web filter that screens out vulgar sites.
  6. v. To pass (a liquid or gas) through a filter.
  7. v. To remove by passing through a filter: filter out impurities.
  8. v. Computer Science To use a filter to block access to (a website or Web content).
  9. v. To pass through or as if through a filter: Light filtered through the blinds.
  10. v. To come or go gradually and in small groups: The audience filtered back into the hall.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A device for arresting and separating any matter mechanically suspended in a liquid. Filters used in the processes of analytical chemistry are made of paper or asbestos. The filter-paper is bibulous, consisting of nearly pure cellulose, with only bare traces of mineral matter. Many precipitates are more conveniently separated by an asbestos filter, the most common form consisting of an ordinary platinum crucible having the bottom perforated with fine holes which are covered with a thin asbestos felt. In the arts filters are used to purify water, syrups, vinegar, the juices of cane and fruits, oils, liquors, sewage, liquid by-products, and molten metals. The materials used in filtration are gravel, sand, charcoal, bone-black, sponge, fabrics, woven wire netting, asbestos, porous brick and stone, mineral wool, rope, paper, and powdered glass. The devices used to hold the straining material are in a great variety of forms, from a simple wick or loose cloth hung over the edge of a bowl of water and acting as a capillary strainer, to a settling-pond filtering 400,000 gallons of water in a day. The most common filter is a cone of bibulous paper, or a square of cloth sewed together to form a bag (called Hippocrates's sleeve). Filters also consist of porous brick or stone partitions, as in a cistern, or vessels partly filled with sand and gravel, or tubes filled with sponge, charcoal, or sand, etc. Domestic filters are used in connection with pumps and water-faucets. To cause the liquid to pass through a filter, the weight of a column of water, the pressure of the atmosphere, mechanical force from a screw or from steam-pressure, and centrifugal force are employed, as in the centrifugal filter, oil-filter, vacuum-filter, and many forms of pressure-filters. Filters are also made reversible and intermittent, so that the filtering material may be freed from the collected sediment. In some pressure-filters the liquid or syrup is within a cylinder, and is forced outward through rings of fabric under steam-pressure; in others it is forced through a series of strainers piled one above another. Where bone-black and charcoal are used, there is also a filtering or straining of a certain amount of gas and organic material that would pass through any other filter without detention. Filters are also used to remove dust and floating matter from air, but such devices are more properly termed air-strainers.
  2. n. Specifically In fish-culture, a long box in which screens, usually of flannel, are placed, through which the water is filtered before it passes into the hatching-troughs. Also called filtering-box, filtering-tank.
  3. To purify or defecate, as water or other liquid, by passing it through a filter or any cleansing medium; strain.
  4. Specifically In analytic chemistry, to separate (a solution) from the solid matter contained in it, either for the purpose of collecting and saving the solid matter, usually a precipitate, or of preparing the solution for further operations.
  5. To percolate; pass through or as through a filter.
  6. Same as felter.
  7. n. See philter.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A device which separates a suspended, dissolved, or particulate matter from a fluid, solution, or other substance; any device that separates one substance from another.
  2. n. Electronics or software that separates unwanted signals (for example noise) from wanted signals or that attenuates selected frequencies.
  3. n. Any item, mechanism, device or procedure that acts to separate or isolate.
  4. n. mathematics, order theory A non-empty upper set (of a partially ordered set) which is closed under binary infima (a.k.a. meets).
  5. v. transitive To sort, sift, or isolate.
  6. v. transitive To diffuse; to cause to be less concentrated or focused.
  7. v. intransitive To pass through a filter or to act as though passing through a filter.
  8. v. intransitive To move slowly or gradually; to come or go a few at a time.
  9. v. intransitive To ride a motorcycle between lanes on a road

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Any porous substance, as cloth, paper, sand, or charcoal, through which water or other liquid may passed to cleanse it from the solid or impure matter held in suspension; a chamber or device containing such substance; a strainer; also, a similar device for purifying air.
  2. v. To purify or defecate, as water or other liquid, by causing it to pass through a filter.
  3. v. To pass through a filter; to percolate.
  4. n. Same as philter.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. run or flow slowly, as in drops or in an unsteady stream
  2. v. pass through
  3. v. remove by passing through a filter
  4. n. an electrical device that alters the frequency spectrum of signals passing through it
  5. n. device that removes something from whatever passes through it

Etymologies

  1. (noun) From Medieval Latin filtrum, from West Germanic *filtiz. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English filtre, from Old French, from Medieval Latin filtrum, of Germanic origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “What you can put in the text box to filter is anything you would put after '$filter =' in a”

    Site Home

  • “For example, a call to polymorphic_path ([@project, @filter, @issue]) with a nil filter now returns commit”

    Riding Rails - home

  • “Plus there's a lot more things you'll want to filter other than just whats provided by the filter_* functions.”

    digg.com: Stories / Popular

  • “$filter - You assign a filter expression to this parameter to filter the movie results.”

    ASP.NET Weblogs

  • “Cast post a whole host of words which trigger the word filter yet no one seems to know what the list of words are.”

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

  • “I need a more functional bottle and a filter is a good addition to any daily water bottle.”

    Win A Karim-Rashid Designed, Water-Filtering Bobble Bottle! | Inhabitat

  • “Raising his voice Clay boomed into the microphone, "the filter is the single most important function on the internet today.”

    Old Think from New Publishers

  • “Setting up a filter is the same whether you're working with ad groups, keywords, or placement; though, the criteria you can filter by does depend on what you're trying to filter.”

    New Interface Thursdays: All about filters

  • “So the kind of filtering described above might well pass muster for “targeting persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States,” even if it scoops up a lot of stuff that proves not to be germane, provided the filter is at least reasonably well designed to gather information about the target foreign group.”

    A Few Further Questions About the FISA Bill

  • “This filter is able to detect invalid clicks in real-time, with the goal of removing them before they ever show up in the AdWords console.”

    We Told You Click Fraud Wasn’t That Bad

Show 10 more examples...

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘filter’.

Comments

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  • chained_bear Cursitis! Aug 14, 2008

  • reesetee Scandal! Aug 14, 2008

  • bilby Filth! Aug 14, 2008

  • sionnach Did you know that Wordie is not available from all computers here in Buenos Aires? Last night when I tried to access the site, all I got was a perpetual "site not found" message. Earlier this evening, working from a different machine (I'm in an internet café), there was no problem. But this machine found the site, indicated it had potential adult content, and immediately closed down the window.

    The content filter has now been turned off. At least I think it has. If you are reading this message, we can assume that it has.

    Oh, you foul-mouthed Wordies, the porteños are onto you!!! Aug 14, 2008

  • brtom "You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self." Whitman, Song of Myself, 2 Jan 3, 2008

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‘filter’ has been looked up 2807 times, loved by 1 person, added to 27 lists, commented on 5 times, and has a Scrabble score of 9.