sift

From Middle English syften, from Old English siftan, from Proto-West Germanic *siftijan.

• IPA^(key): /sɪft/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪft

sift (third-person singular simple present sifts, present participle sifting, simple past and past participle sifted)

1. (transitive) To sieve or strain (something).
2. (transitive) To separate or scatter (things) as if by sieving.
3. (transitive) To examine (something) carefully.
   1. (archaic or dated, transitive) To scrutinize (someone or something) carefully so as to find the truth.
      • 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 23, column 1:

        As neere as I could ſift him on that argument,
        On ſome apparant danger ſeene in him,
        Aym‘d at your Highneſſe, no inueterate malice.

      • 1748, David Hume, Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral, London: Oxford University Press, published 1973, § 28:

        But if we still carry on our sifting humour, and ask, What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience ? this implies a new question.

      • 1764, Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, Strawberry Hill Press:

        It immediately occurred to him to sift her on the subject of Isabella and Theodore.

      • 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 108:

        “I fear that there is something more serious than accident here, Mr. Brently,” said the captain. “I wish that you would make a personal and very careful examination of Mr. Caldwell’s effects, to ascertain if there is any clew to a motive either for suicide or murder—sift the thing to the bottom.”

      • 1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 162:

        Never, he said, in the course of his long experience, had he known a charge of murder rest on slighter evidence. Not only was it entirely circumstantial, but the greater part of it was practically unproved. Let them take the testimony they had heard and sift it impartially.

   2. (transitive) [with through] To carefully go through a set of objects, or a collection of information, in order to find something.
      • 1996, Timothy B. Savage, Power Through Weakness: Paul's Understanding of the Christian Ministry in 2 Corinthians, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, page 70:

        Sifting through the work of great orators like Philostratus and Quintilian they identify numerous examples of classical irony, metaphor, comparison, etc. which are missing in Paul.

      • 2025 May 15, “Europe’s free-speech problem”, in The Economist‎^[1]:

        Britain’s police are especially zealous. Officers spend thousands of hours sifting through potentially offensive posts and arrest 30 people a day. Among those collared were a man who ranted about immigration on Facebook and a couple who criticised their daughter’s primary school.

4. (computing, dated, transitive) To move data records up in memory to make space to insert further records.

sift (plural sifts)

1. An act of sifting.

• The utensil used for sifting is a sieve, and not a sift.

• FIST, FITs, FiTs, ITFs, TIFs, fist, fits