Other forms: sifting, sifted, sifts
To sift is to shake dry powder through a mesh to remove lumps. Sift the flour, sift together, sift through the evidence.
In baking it does two jobs: it breaks up lumps and it adds air, which is why a cake recipe asks you to sift even when the flour looks fine. Figuratively, to sift through evidence is to go over it slowly, separating what matters from what does not.
1verbsiftTo shake dry powder through a mesh to remove lumps.
“Sift the flour and the salt together into a large bowl.”
Patternsift + noun (flour, sugar, cocoa) · sift sth into a bowl · sifted flour · a sifter · sift through
sift is a separating.
SIft → shake it through the SIeve
It is what a sieve does: shake the flour through it, and the lumps stay behind.
hooks ontosieve
Old English siftan comes from the same root as sieve, a Germanic word for the mesh itself.
Proto-West Germanic
*siftijan
Old English
siftan
Middle English
syften
English, today
sift
From Middle English syften, from Old English siftan, from Proto-West Germanic siftijan.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in In the Kitchen