Synonyms

sift

American

[sift] / sɪft /

verb (used with object)

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)

to sift something.
to pass or fall through or as if through a sieve.

sift British

/ sɪft /

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

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

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.

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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:

sift sifts sifted sifting

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

She remembers scooping up what remained of her artwork and watching it sift through her fingers, the porcelain broken and changed.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026

Mr. Burnham’s problems sift into two categories, “U-turn” and “huh?”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026

For the next hour or so, the volunteers sift through the seagrass as it lays flat on the shore.

From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026

The Prospector would scoop up dirt and rocks and sift them through the maze of wooden strips.

From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls

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

Yet from that painful personal source emerges something unfortunately indistinct, as though softly blanketed by the snow that sifts slowly down during this holiday drama.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 11, 2025

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

Times BuzzMeter panel sifts through several crowded fields in our roundup of the supporting categories for comedy and drama series.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2025

She stands among the ashes, bends down, and sifts through a pile of burnt wood.

From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone

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

When ready, the baskets were lifted out of the water by crane and placed on a barge alongside the Salvor, where researchers sifted through the contents by hand.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026

The mud in the pit is sifted and shovelled.

From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026

One trader sifted through pink, green and purple beads that she said would be moulded into e-cigarette casings sold in the Middle East.

From Barron's ● May 6, 2026

“It’s a little...brief,” Jessie said as she sifted through a box of odds and ends she had picked up over the years.

From "The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street" by Karina Yan Glaser

AI-driven answers culled from sifting information in large language models might lack important context or fail to interpret it correctly.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

The regional governor published photos of rescuers sifting through the rubble of a small house.

From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026

They are getting better at sifting data into meaningful signals and meaningless noise.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026

“You’re sifting through a bunch of profiles. It’s really hard to understand and find somebody that’s compatible for you based on your specific types of preferences,” she said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 28, 2026

As he walked through town, Ellsberg watched villagers stooped over in the remains of their homes, sifting the ruins for anything salvageable.

From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023