SIEVE
What does "SIEVE" mean?
A utensil with a mesh or perforated base used to separate solids from liquids or coarse from fine.
Meanings
- A meshed or perforated tool for straining, sifting, or separating particles by size. Pass the flour through a sieve to remove the lumps.
- To put something through a sieve; to sift or filter. She sieved the broth to catch the bones.
- A person or thing that fails to retain anything, such as a leaky memory or a porous defense. His memory was a sieve; names ran right through it. figurative
Did you know?
- An ancient Greek named Eratosthenes invented a 'sieve' for numbers - cross out every multiple and the prime numbers are what stay caught in the mesh.
- 'Sieve' quietly breaks the 'i before e' jingle and is pronounced 'siv', tripping up spellers who expect it to rhyme with 'grieve'.
Word origin
From Old English 'sife', from Proto-Germanic 'sibi'; related to Dutch 'zeef' and German 'Sieb', and to the verb 'sift'.
Remember it
SIEVE: the holes let the E's of 'see' fall through, leaving only a short 'siv'.
A little poem
Holds nothing for long-
the sieve keeps only the lumps,
lets the fine flour fly.
haiku
Wordplay
- My memory is a sieve, which is fitting - I keep only the lumps and lose everything that mattered.
What it teaches
A good sieve keeps the worth and lets the rest fall through - choose carefully which mesh you are.
Quick facts
What does SIEVE mean?
A utensil with a mesh or perforated base used to separate solids from liquids or coarse from fine.
Is SIEVE a valid word?
Yes — SIEVE is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is SIEVE?
SIEVE has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does SIEVE come from?
From Old English 'sife', from Proto-Germanic 'sibi'; related to Dutch 'zeef' and German 'Sieb', and to the verb 'sift'.
What can SIEVE teach us?
A good sieve keeps the worth and lets the rest fall through - choose carefully which mesh you are.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.