sievenoun/sɪv/

• 1

  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.

  • The philosopher Demonax said of two dunces, 'one appeared to be milking a he-goat while the other was holding a sieve for him.'
  • Near-synonyms: sifter, strainer, temse
• 2

  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.

  • Given a list of consecutive numbers starting at 1, the Sieve of Eratosthenes algorithm will find all of the prime numbers.
  • Among, ^([sic]) his other achievements, Matiyasevich and his colleague Boris Stechkin also developed an interesting “visual sieve” for prime numbers, which effectively “crosses out” all the composite numbers, leaving only the primes.
• 3

  obsoleteA kind of coarse basket.

• 4

  A person, or their mind, that cannot remember things or is unable to keep secrets.

• 5

  derogatoryslangmedicinesciencesAn intern who lets too many non-serious cases into the emergency room.

  • To be a sieve was to lack clinical judgment, courage, and group loyalty all at once.
• 6

  category-theorycomputingengineeringA collection of morphisms in a category whose codomain is a certain fixed object of that category, which collection is closed under precomposition by any morphism in the category.

sieveverb/sɪv/

• 1

  To strain, sift or sort using a sieve.

  • Serpulorbis grandis feeds on plankton that it seives ^([sic]) from the water like a clam does.
• 2

  hobbieslifestylesportsTo concede; to let in.

  • This was their seventh defeat out of nine finals, including five in a row, and the second half was a chastening experience for the Serie A champions, culminating in them sieving more goals in one match than in the rest of the competition put together.