sift
sift
/sɪft/
1 transitive sift something to put flour or some other fine substance through a sieve / sifter Sift the flour into a bowl.
Sift the flour finely before adding it to the mixture.
You will need 100g self-raising flour, sifted.
2 transitive, intransitive to examine something very carefully in order to decide what is important or useful or to find something important sift something We will sift every scrap of evidence.
Computers are being used to sift the information.
sift through something Crash investigators have been sifting through the wreckage of the aircraft.
He's mentally sifting for truths.
I spent hours sifting through those heavy art books.
Collocations
adverb
preposition
for
through
phrases
spend hours sifting through something
spend time sifting through something
3 transitive sift something (out) from something to separate something from a group of things He sifted the relevant data from the rest.
She looked quickly through the papers, sifting out from the pile anything that looked interesting.
Phrasal Verbs
Word Origin
Old English siftan, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch ziften, also to sieve.