sift
/sɪft/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.02 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To move data records up in memory to make space to insert further records.
Dated; Transitive verb
name
Initialism of scale-invariant feature transform.
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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."
- "It immediately occurred to him to sift her on the subject of Isabella and Theodore."
- "“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.”"
- "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."
- "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."
Etymology
From Middle English syften, from Old English siftan, from Proto-West Germanic *siftijan.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: syften, siftan, *siftijan
Usage
- Transitive verb
- Archaic
- Dated
- American usage