Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A utensil of wire mesh or closely perforated metal, used for straining, sifting, ricing, or puréeing.
- v. To pass through a sieve.
- v. To use a sieve; sift.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An instrument for separating the finer from the coarser parts of disintegrated matter, by shaking it so as to force the former through meshes too small for the latter to pass. Sieves are made in many forms for a great variety of uses. See hair-siere, scarce, screen, bolting-cloth, etc.
- n. Something for other use shaped like or in some way resembling the common circular sieve. A basket of coarsely plaited straw or the like, so called because it is made with many small meshes or openings: locally used as a measure, about a bushel.
- n. A wide sheepskin-covered hoop used in some localities for holding wool.
- n. In calico-printing, a cloth extending over a vat which contains the color.
- n. Figuratively, a thing which lacks closeness of texture, or a person who lacks closeness of disposition; especially, a very frank or free-spoken person; one who lets out all that he knows.
- To cause the finer parts of to pass through or as if through a sieve; sift.
Wiktionary
- n. A device to separate larger objects from smaller objects, or to separate solid objects from a liquid.
- n. A process, physical or abstract, that arrives at a final result by filtering out unwanted pieces of input from a larger starting set of input.
- v. To strain, sift or sort using a sieve.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A utensil for separating the finer and coarser parts of a pulverized or granulated substance from each other. It consist of a vessel, usually shallow, with the bottom perforated, or made of hair, wire, or the like, woven in meshes.
- n. A kind of coarse basket.
WordNet 3.0
- v. examine in order to test suitability
- n. a strainer for separating lumps from powdered material or grading particles
- v. check and sort carefully
- v. separate by passing through a sieve or other straining device to separate out coarser elements
- v. distinguish and separate out
Etymologies
- Middle English sive, from Old English sife.
Examples
“A sieve is a mechanism, specifically, a device which selects or separates from among that which already exists.”
“If it leaks like a sieve, is there anything you can do about it?”
Guest Post: Personal Factor Four: Organizing Real Environmental Action with the Internet
“With each side conceding four last Tuesday it looked on the cards anyway, though neither manager licked his lips too publicly in advance lest it smacked of the colander calling the sieve holey.”
The Guardian: Hereford fail to see the funny side as Barnet emerge with the points
“Only, it's a selective sieve, which is the way of most sieves, now that I think on it.”
“The scientists say the key to their molecular sieve, which is made using microfabrication technology, is the uniform size of the nanopores through which proteins are separated from biological fluids.”
“In order to protect it on Oscar night, he says, every hole in the so-called sieve will have to be sealed off.”
“The mind of a sieve is a beautiful thing to waste :”
“WILLIS: But you are leaking money like a sieve is the problem.”
“The leaves are now taken back to the hot pans and spread out in them as before, being again turned with the naked hand, and when hot taken out and rolled; after which, they are put into a drying basket and spread on a sieve, which is in the centre of the basket, and the whole placed over a charcoal fire.”
“A law was made by the Jews that to drink water that had not been passed through a sieve was a sin; and, as little children are taught not to commit any sin, they do not drink any water that has not been passed through a sieve; owing to this, many illnesses are prevented among the Jews that are rampant among the Arabs and others.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘sieve’.
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*e?e
Words whose last and third-to-last letters are both "e".
here, eke, were, complete, mete, replete, adhere, where, mere, sphere, austere, aesthete and 98 more...
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January 2012
bloviate, pastiche, apparat, facile, paroxysm, pique, bedfellow, pedigree, tutelage, protege, protégé, retroactive and 196 more...
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Kitchen Utensils
As I got rolling on this, discovered this list, by Trivet.
butter knife, bread knife, steak knife, spife, pan, pot, salt shaker, cauldron, colander, sieve, zester, spatula and 34 more...
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kitchen utensils
glass, knife, fork, teapot, oven, spoon, plate, frying pan, saucepan, masher, spatula, strainer and 13 more...
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Ugliest Sounding Words
List words that sound ugly, regardless of meaning
kumquat, milk, meal, jizz, bubonic, fester, goulash, sasquatch, carbuncle, sieve, onomatopoeia, burlesque and 29 more...
oroboros In mathematics a sieve is used to find prime numbers. Click here for an interesting demonstration. Feb 14, 2007