0 past simple and past participle of sift
1 to put flour, sugar, etc. through a sieve (= wire net shaped like a bowl) to break up large pieces:
2 to make a close examination of all the parts of something in order to find something or to separate what is useful from what is not:
Much more evidence will have to be sifted before these issues can be settled definitively.
Arguments are carefully explained and weighed and the findings of a wide range of research studies are sifted and summarised.
The pupae were then sifted and transferred to normal rearing cages and treated in the standard manner as above.
Their small size enables her to become intimately familiar with their populations, and she has clearly sifted through her sources carefully and thoroughly.
At the second, these standards are sifted by appeal to some moral condition that is thought to be essential to law.
However, up until at least 1741 and possibly beyond, the content is not mindlessly repeated, but carefully sifted through, revised, and consistently expanded.
The science needs to be carefully sifted however.
The contents of each dish were sifted through, and the number of each seed species or bead was recorded.
