screen

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Definitions (76)

American Heritage Dictionary (25)
  1. noun A movable device, especially a framed construction such as a room divider or a decorative panel, designed to divide, conceal, or protect.
  2. noun One that serves to protect, conceal, or divide: Security guards formed a screen around the President. A screen of evergreens afforded privacy from our neighbors.
  3. noun A coarse sieve used for sifting out fine particles, as of sand, gravel, or coal.
  4. noun A system for preliminary appraisal and selection of personnel as to their suitability for particular jobs.
  5. noun A window or door insertion of framed wire or plastic mesh used to keep out insects and permit air flow.
  6. noun The white or silver surface on which a picture is projected for viewing.
  7. noun The movie industry: a star of stage and screen. Also called silver screen.
  8. noun Electronics The phosphorescent surface on which an image is displayed, as on a television, computer monitor, or radar receiver.
  9. noun Computer Science The information or image displayed at a given time on such a computer monitor: printing a hard copy of the screen.
  10. noun Electronics The electrode placed between the anode and the control grid in a tetrode valve. Also called screen grid.
  11. noun Printing A glass plate marked off with crossing lines, placed before the lens of a camera when photographing for halftone reproduction.
  12. noun A body of troops or ships sent in advance of or surrounding a larger body to protect or warn of attack.
  13. noun Sports A block, set with the body, that impedes the vision or movement of an opponent.
  14. noun Football A screen pass.
  15. transitive verb To provide with a screen: screen a porch.
  16. transitive verb To conceal from view with or as if with a screen. See Synonyms at block, hide1.
  17. transitive verb To protect, guard, or shield.
  18. transitive verb To separate or sift out (fine particles of sand, for example) by means of a sieve or screen.
  19. transitive verb To show or project (a movie, for example) on a screen.
  20. transitive verb To examine (a job applicant, for example) systematically in order to determine suitability.
  21. transitive verb To test or evaluate (a student) to determine placement in an educational system or to identify specific learning needs.
  22. transitive verb To test or examine for the presence of disease or infection: screen blood; screen a patient.
  23. transitive verb To subject to genetic screening.
  24. transitive verb Sports To block the vision or movement of (an opponent) with the body.
  25. transitive verb Sports To obscure an opponent's view of (a shot) by positioning oneself between the opponent and the shooter.

Century Dictionary (33)
  1. A covered framework, partition, or curtain, either movable or fixed, which serves to protect from the heat of the sun or of a fire, from rain, wind, or cold, or from other inconvenience or danger, or to shelter from observation, conceal, shut off the view, or secure privacy: as, a fire-screen; a folding screen; a window-screen, etc.; hence, such a covered framework, curtain, etc., used for some other purpose: as, a screen upon which images may be cast by a magic lantern; in general, any shelter or means of concealment. Your leafy screens. Shak., Macbeth, v. 6. 1. There is … great use of ambitious men in being screens to princes in matters of danger and envy. Bacon, Ambition. Mill. Mincing, stand between me and his Wit. Wit. Do, Mrs. Mincing, like a Skreen before a great Fire. Congreve, Way of the World, ii. 4.
  2. Specifically, in architecture:
  3. An ornamental partition of wood, stone, or metal, usually so placed in a church or other building as to shut out an aisle from the choir, a private chapel from a transept, the nave from the choir, the high altar from the east end, an altar-tomb from a public passage, or to fill any similar purpose. See perclose, and cut under organ-screen.
  4. In some medieval and similar halls, a partition extending across the lower end, forming a lobby within the main entrance-doors, and having ofteu a gallery above.
  5. An architecturally decorated wall inclosing a courtyard or the like. Such a feature as the entire facade of a church may be considered as a screen when it does not correspond with the interior structure, as is commonly the case in Italian and frequent in English churches, but is merely a decorative mask for the building behind it. See cut under reredos. The screen of arches recently discovered in the hôtel of the Prefecture at Angers. J. Fergusson, Hist. Arch., I. 490. The western façade… of Lincoln consists of a vast arcaded screen unbroken by upright divisions, with a level cornice terminating its multiplied horizontal lines. C. H. Moore, Gothic Architecture, p. 162.
  6. A kind of riddle or sieve. Especially — A sieve used by farmers for sifting earth or seeds. Other screens for grain and other substances are in the shape of cylinders, some having knockers or brushes as in a flour-bolt. See cuts under pearling-mill. A wire sieve for sifting sand, gravel, etc. See sand-screen (with cut). In metallurgy, a perforated plate of metal, used in the dressing of ores. The screens of a stamp-mill are placed in front of the mortars, and regulate the fineness to which the material has to be reduced before it can pass through, and thus escape further comminution. An apparatus for sizing coal in a coal-breaker. Screens of cast-iron are used for the coarser sizes, and of woven wire for the very smallest. A device to prevent the passage of fish up a stream, made of common wire painted with tar, or strips of laths planed and nailed to a strong frame: employed by fish-breeders.
  7. A large scarf forming a kind of plaid. [Scots.] The want of the screen, which was drawn over the head like a veil, she supplied by a bongrace, as she called it: a large straw bonnet, like those worn by the English maidens when labouring in the fields. Scott, Heart of Mid-Lothian, xxviii.
  8. Folding screen. A screen consisting of several leaves or fiats hinged together in such a way that when they are opened at an angle the screen will stand firmly.
  9. Folding screen. A screen supported on cross-rails, feet, or the like, enabling it to stand firmly, and with hinged flaps which when opened increase its width.
  10. Ladder-screens coverings put underneath ladders on board ship to prevent the feet of those going up and down from being seen. The ladders when so covered are said to be dressed.
  11. Magazine-screen (nautical), a curtain made of baize, flannel, or fear-naught, and having an aperture closed by a flap. In time of action, or when the magazine is open, this curtain is hung before the scuttle leading from the magazine, and the cartridges are passed through the aperture for distribution to the guns.
  12. Magnetic screen. See magnetic.
  13. Screen bulkhead. See bulkhead.
  14. To shelter or protect from inconvenience, injury, danger, or observation; cover; conceal. Back'd with a ridge of hills, That screen'd the fruits of the earth. Milton, P. R., iv. 30. The Romans still he well did use, Still screen'd their Roguery. Prior, The Viceroy, st. 30.
  15. To sift or riddle by passing through a screen: as, to screen coal.
  16. Synonyms To defend, hide, mask, cloak, shroud.
  17. In cricket, the white canvas background placed behind the bowler to aid the batsman in seeing the ball. In meteorology: (1) A shelter; something which protects from obnoxious meteorological influences but allows free action of any special influence whose intensity is to be observed. (2) Specifically, the Stevenson screen, a wooden frame or cage with louver sides 24 × 15 × 9 inches, holding thermometers, hygrometers, or evaporometers. This screen is allowable in very windy locations, but in general is objected to by meteorologists as being too small. The thermograph screen is a larger louvered cage for larger self-recording apparatus. The Weather Bureau screen is a cube of one yard or more. See thermometer shelter. In forestry, same as shade-frame.
  18. In paper manuf., a machine for sorting and separating the fine particles of the pulp from the large particles; a pulp-screen. It is made in a number of forms, some employing centrifugal force.
  19. A transparent plate having ruled upon its surface lines, parallel or crossed, placed immediately in front of the sensitive plate in the manufacture of a half-tone negative, in order to break up the shadows by diffraction.
  20. Absorbent screen. See absorbent.
  21. Aërial screen a transparent screen of smoke, gauze, etc., used in the production of lightning, ghosts, and similar scenic effects, with a magic lantern.
  22. Armored screen a thin vertical armor-plate in the interior of a war-ship in the vicinity of the guns, to protect them from flying splinters.
  23. Bunsen screen a photometric screen of the type devised by Robert Bunsen. It consists of a sheet of unsized paper a portion of which has been rendered translucent by soaking it in oil or paraffin. See photometer.
  24. Color-screen. See color-screen.
  25. Crova's screen a solution composed of 22.3 grams of anhydrous ferric chlorid and 27.2 grams of nickel chlorid dissolved in 100 cubic centimeters of distilled water and used in a layer 7 millimeters thick as a screen through which to view a photometer-screen. Only light of 0.582μ, the clear yellow of the spectrum, is seen, since the iron cuts out the green and blue while the nickel cuts out the red rays. Lights of different color are thus comparable. L. Bell, Art of Illumination, p. 333.
  26. Dyed screen in photography, a colored screen used in the orthochromatic process. Woodbury, Encyc. Dict. of Photog., p. 177.
  27. Electrostatic screen a conducting wall or layer, impenetrable to the lines of force of an electrostatic field and which thus serves to protect from the action of the field bodies which the wall surrounds. Thus a closed vessel of metal, however thin the walls, is a perfect electrostatic screen for objects within.
  28. Elster screen a photometer-screen for diffusing light. A two inch cube of paraffin is divided centrally, and a sheet of metal or other substance impervious to light is inserted between the halves, which are then pressed together. The light, falling normally on the faces of the cube, is spherically diffused, and each half of the cube being illuminated from its respective light-source will present two illuminated fields from the face toward the observer, who views the screen in a sight-box. The fields will be sharply defined from each other by the thin partition. The screen is fairly sensitive. W. M. Stine, Photometrical Measurements, p. 41.
  29. Half-tone screen. See screen, 4, and haIf-tone.
  30. Joly diffusive screen a photometer-screen resembling the Elstser screen, consisting of a cube of paraffin centrally divided into two parallelepipeds, each 20 × 50 × 11 millimeters, which are then pressed together.
  31. Methven screen in photometry, a device for obtaining from an Argand gas-flame a light of standard intensity. It consists of a metal screen, with a rectangular opening, mounted in front of the flame. See light standard.
  32. Orthochromatic screen in photography, a screen, as a plain yellow glass or a cell with parallel sides filled with potassium dichromate solution, placed either in front of or behind the objective of a camera, for the purpose of cutting off some of the blue and violet rays and leaving the less refrangible rays with such relative degree of intensity and of chemical actinicity as to produce a picture more correctly corresponding to the lights and shades as seen by the eye.
  33. Solar screen a small white plate or card supported a short distance before the eyepiece of a surveyor's transit to receive the image of the sun and the cross-wires of the telescope.

GNU Webster's 1913 (2)
  1. Anything that separates or cuts off inconvenience, injury, or danger; that which shelters or conceals from view; a shield or protection; as, a fire screen.
  2. To provide with a shelter or means of concealment; to separate or cut off from inconvenience, injury, or danger; to shelter; to protect; to protect by hiding; to conceal; as, fruits screened from cold winds by a forest or hill.

WordNet (16)
  1. a protective covering that keeps things out or hinders sight
  2. a protective covering consisting of netting; can be mounted in a frame
  3. a covering that serves to conceal or shelter something
  4. partition consisting of a decorative frame or panel that serves to divide a space
  5. the display that is electronically created on the surface of the large end of a cathode-ray tube
  6. a white or silvered surface where pictures can be projected for viewing
  7. a door that consists of a frame holding metallic or plastic netting; used to allow ventilation and to keep insects from entering a building through the open door
  8. a strainer for separating lumps from powdered material or grading particles
  9. the personnel of the film industry
  10. examine methodically
  11. protect, hide, or conceal from danger or harm
  12. separate with a riddle, as grain from chaff
  13. prevent from entering
  14. project onto a screen for viewing
  15. examine in order to test suitability
  16. test or examine for the presence of disease or infection

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