See Also: sieve(medicine)
sieve(dictionary)
molecular sieve(medicine)
sieve bone(medicine)
sieve graft(medicine)
sieve plate(medicine)
sieve tube(medicine)
sieve 1, noun(dictionary)
sieve 2, verb(dictionary)

sieve (iou)



sieve noun & verb.
[Old English sife = Middle Low German, Middle Dutch seve (Dutch zeef), Old High German sib, sip (German Sieb), from West Germanic.]
A. noun.
A utensil consisting of a meshed or perforated surface enclosed in a frame, used to separate the coarser from the finer particles of a loose material, to strain solids from a liquid, or to reduce a soft solid to a pulp or puree; esp. a kitchen utensil so used formed of a fine rounded metal or plastic mesh in a circular frame with a handle. OE.
B. Fussell Push pulp through a sieve and discard the seeds.
b. fig. A selective or purifying process or sytem. E17.
c. fig. A person or thing unable to retain something; esp. a person who cannot keep a secret. E17.
head like a sieve colloq. a memory that retains little.
New Age People could..stop living in sieves, fix up the buildings. R. Ludlum Not much to..lock up these days. The White House is a sieve.
(A vessel used as) a measure for grain, fruit, etc. LME.
Math.
a. In full sieve of Eratosthenes [Greek writer of the 3rd cent. BC]. A method of finding the prime numbers in a (usu. consecutive) list of numbers by deleting in turn all the multiples of all possible prime factors. E19.
b. A method of estimating or finding upper and lower limits for the number of primes, or of numbers not having factors within a stated set, that fall within a stated interval. L19.
Comb.: sieve analysis: of the sizes of particles in a powdered or granular material made by passing it through sieves of increasing fineness; sieve cell Botany a primitive type of sieve element, characteristic of gymnosperms and lower cryptogams, having uniformly narrow pores; sieve element Botany an elongated conducting cell in the phloem, in which the primary wall is perforated by pores; sieve map a map on which the distribution of a number of features is depicted by means of transparent overlays; sieve plate Botany an area of relatively large pores found in the end walls of sieve tube elements; sieve tube Botany a series of sieve tube elements placed end to end to form a continuous tube; sieve tube element a type of sieve element having a sieve plate, characteristic of angiosperms.
b. verb.
verb trans. Pass (as) through a sieve; sift, strain; fig. submit to a selective or screening process. L15.
C. Conran If there are any coarse fibres in the puree, sieve it. A. Tyler They sieved the news..and passed it on.
b. Foll. by out: remove or separate (as) by passing through a sieve. Chiefly as sieved ppl adjective. M19.
W. Soyinka He continued to stare.., probing with a million antennae, sieving out distracting atmospherics.
verb intrans. Pass material through a sieve; fig. submit material to a selective or screening process. Also, (of material) pass (as) through a sieve. Freq. foll. by through. M19.
H. Melville That man should be a thing for immortal souls to sieve through!
sieveful noun as much or as many as a sieve can hold ME.
sievelike adjective perforated like a sieve; fig. unable to retain information, heat, etc.: L16.
siever noun (a) (now rare or obsolete) a sieve-maker; (b) a person who uses a sieve: ME.