sift
Americanverb (used with object)
-
sifts,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sifted,
past participle, past
-
sifting
present participle
-
to separate and retain the coarse parts of (flour, ashes, etc.) with a sieve.
-
to scatter or sprinkle through or by means of a sieve.
to sift sugar onto cake.
-
to separate by or as if by a sieve.
-
to examine closely.
The detectives are still sifting the evidence.
- Synonyms:
- probe, search, inspect, scrutinize, sort
-
to question closely.
verb (used without object)
-
sifts,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sifted,
past participle, past
-
sifting
present participle
-
to sift something.
-
to pass or fall through or as if through a sieve.
verb
-
(tr) to sieve (sand, flour, etc) in order to remove the coarser particles
-
to scatter (something) over a surface through a sieve
-
(tr) to separate with or as if with a sieve; distinguish between
-
(tr) to examine minutely
to sift evidence
-
(intr) to move as if through a sieve
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
sifternoun
-
outsiftverb (used with object)
-
presiftverb (used with object)
-
resiftverb (used with object)
-
unsiftedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
siftsimple
-
siftssimple
-
have siftedperfect
-
has siftedperfect
-
am siftingprogressive
-
are siftingprogressive
-
is siftingprogressive
-
have been siftingperfect progressive
-
has been siftingperfect progressive
Past
-
siftedsimple
-
had siftedperfect
-
was siftingprogressive
-
were siftingprogressive
-
had been siftingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sift
before 900; Middle English siften, Old English siftan; cognate with Dutch, Middle Low German siften; akin to sieve
Explanation
To bake a cake, you sift the flour to get out the lumps. When you sift, you separate out one thing from another. When you sort through the mail looking for the bills or go through your photos to find that shot of your dog, that’s sifting, too. Detectives sift through piles of evidence when investigating crimes, and you might sift through the hundred applications you get from drummers eager to join your band, to find Ms. Right. When you're at the beach, you can sift sand through your fingers, and you might see big machines that sift the sand to clean it.
Vocabulary lists containing sift
Stairway To Leaven: Baking Vocabulary
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Holes
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Ender's Game
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“Hey Siri, play that song Eric texted me about” prompted the assistant to sift through messages to find the requested track, then play the Bad Bunny song with lyrics highlighted on screen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026
Rescue teams and family members continue to sift through the rubble in search of victims and loved ones, with nearly 17,000 people injured in the tremors.
From Barron's ● Aug. 3, 2026
Rescue teams and family members continue to sift through the rubble in La Guaira, searching for victims and loved ones.
From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026
With record youth unemployment and vacancies half what they were in recent years employers are increasingly turning to AI to sift through the huge volume of applications and favouring online interviews over in person.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
My father likes to sift through street castoffs and industrial junk heaps for treasures.
From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García
AI sifts through tens of millions of records of data for marketers, who then create AI agents that carry out complex marketing tasks.
From Barron's ● Feb. 12, 2026
His interpretive approach, refined over years of studying the nuclear threat, credibly sifts the historical record without slowing the book’s tempo.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 16, 2026
She is talking about her late husband's former employer as she sifts through a pile of letters from his pension company.
From BBC ● Dec. 5, 2025
The Policy Lab sifts through all that data, evaluating some 500 markers to generate a list of individuals and families that its model predicts to be at high risk of becoming homeless.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 30, 2025
He swilled the contents of the Pensieve as Harry had seen him swill them before, much as a gold prospector sifts for gold.
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
Villagers living nearby have long sifted through the mine’s waste rock hunting for overlooked gold.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
Agents sifted through hundreds of thousands of records seized during Kao’s arrest and found that many were consistent with his account of widespread influence peddling.
From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2026
However when the team sifted through their data, they found that at certain wavelengths, the object's light simply disappeared.
From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026
In an abandoned luxury apartment in the Syrian capital Damascus, armed men dressed in military fatigues sifted through designer clothes and documents.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
When he slammed the door behind me, the building shook so hard that plaster dust sifted down from the ceiling.
From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu
Instead, it was a layered cake made from whipping butter and sugar until it was frothy and then sifting in the dry ingredients.
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2026
The Emmy Awards have become a streamlined affair in recent years, as voters, sifting through a fragmented TV landscape, inevitably land on a small set of favorite programs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
Others carry the earth to a nearby seasonal river, where mostly women crouch in the murky water, washing and sifting mud and sand hoping to detect a tiny trace of the element.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
From her London base, she is up by 2 a.m. most days, calling locals and sifting through data to find companies ripe for a shake up.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 18, 2026
All around us, people perceptibly in need of new clothes are sifting through the racks and piles of hanging and folded goods.
From "Odd One Out" by Nic Stone
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
