sieve
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A strainer for separating lumps from powdered material or grading particles.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sivIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɪv
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A strainer for separating lumps from powdered material or grading particles
A device with a mesh, grate, or otherwise perforated bottom to separate, in a granular material, larger particles from smaller ones, or to separate solid objects from a liquid.
A process, physical or abstract, that arrives at a final result by filtering out unwanted pieces of input from a larger starting set of input.
colloquial
A person, or their mind, that cannot remember things or is unable to keep secrets.
verb
To strain, sift or sort using a sieve.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A strainer for separating lumps from powdered material or grading particles
Used this way, sieve is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Separate or remove.
Tube formed by cells joined end-to-end through which nutrients flow in flowering plants and brown algae.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.