Sieve

//sɪv// noun, verb, slang

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A device with a mesh, grate, or otherwise perforated bottom to separate, in a granular material, larger particles from smaller ones, or to separate solid objects from a liquid.

    "Near-synonyms: sifter, strainer, temse"

  2. 2
    a strainer for separating lumps from powdered material or grading particles wordnet
  3. 3
    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.

    "Given a list of consecutive numbers starting at 1, the Sieve of Eratosthenes algorithm will find all of the prime numbers."

  4. 4
    A kind of coarse basket. obsolete
  5. 5
    A person, or their mind, that cannot remember things or is unable to keep secrets. colloquial
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  1. 6
    An intern who lets too many non-serious cases into the emergency room. derogatory, slang

    "To be a sieve was to lack clinical judgment, courage, and group loyalty all at once."

  2. 7
    A collection of morphisms in a category whose codomain is a certain fixed object of that category, which collection is closed under precomposition by any morphism in the category.
Verb
  1. 1
    To strain, sift or sort using a sieve. transitive

    "Serpulorbis grandis feeds on plankton that it seives ^([sic]) from the water like a clam does."

  2. 2
    distinguish and separate out wordnet
  3. 3
    To concede; to let in. transitive

    "This was their seventh defeat out of nine finals, including five in a row, and the second half was a chastening experience for the Serie A champions, culminating in them sieving more goals in one match than in the rest of the competition put together."

  4. 4
    separate by passing through a sieve or other straining device to separate out coarser elements wordnet
  5. 5
    check and sort carefully wordnet
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  1. 6
    examine in order to test suitability wordnet

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English sive, syfe, from Old English sife, from Proto-West Germanic *sibi (“sieve”), from Proto-Indo-European *seyp-, *seyb- (“to pour, sieve, strain, run, drip”). Akin to German Sieb, Dutch zeef, Proto-Slavic *sito (Russian си́то (síto), сев (sev), се́ять (séjatʹ)).

Etymology 2

From Middle English sive, syfe, from Old English sife, from Proto-West Germanic *sibi (“sieve”), from Proto-Indo-European *seyp-, *seyb- (“to pour, sieve, strain, run, drip”). Akin to German Sieb, Dutch zeef, Proto-Slavic *sito (Russian си́то (síto), сев (sev), се́ять (séjatʹ)).

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