The AI-powered English dictionary
plural sieves
A device with a mesh bottom to separate, in a granular material, larger particles from smaller ones, or to separate solid objects from a liquid. examples
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. quotations examples
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.
2010, Luke Mastin, “20TH CENTURY MATHEMATICS - ROBINSON AND MATIYASEVICH”, in www.storyofmathematics.com, retrieved 2013-09-08
(obsolete) A kind of coarse basket.
(colloquial) A person, or their mind, that cannot remember things or is unable to keep secrets. examples
(medicine, slang, derogatory) An intern who lets too many non-serious cases into the emergency room. quotations
To be a sieve was to lack clinical judgment, courage, and group loyalty all at once.
1997, Leo Galland, The Four Pillars of Healing, page 25
(category theory) A 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. examples
third-person singular simple present sieves, present participle sieving, simple past and past participle sieved
To strain, sift or sort using a sieve. examples
(sports) To concede; let in quotations examples
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.
2017 June 3, Daniel Taylor, “Real Madrid win Champions League as Cristiano Ronaldo double defeats Juv”, in The Guardian (London)