Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of verb sift

4 senses of sift

Sense 1
sift -- (move as if through a sieve; "The soldiers sifted through the woods")
       => travel, go, move, locomote -- (change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically; "How fast does your new car go?"; "We travelled from Rome to Naples by bus"; "The policemen went from door to door looking for the suspect"; "The soldiers moved towards the city in an attempt to take it before night fell"; "news travelled fast")

Sense 2
sift, sieve, strain -- (separate by passing through a sieve or other straining device to separate out coarser elements; "sift the flour")
       => separate -- (divide into components or constituents; "Separate the wheat from the chaff")

Sense 3
sieve, sift -- (check and sort carefully; "sift the information")
       => analyze, analyse, study, examine, canvass, canvas -- (consider in detail and subject to an analysis in order to discover essential features or meaning; "analyze a sonnet by Shakespeare"; "analyze the evidence in a criminal trial"; "analyze your real motives")

Sense 4
sieve, sift -- (distinguish and separate out; "sift through the job candidates")
       => choose, take, select, pick out -- (pick out, select, or choose from a number of alternatives; "Take any one of these cards"; "Choose a good husband for your daughter"; "She selected a pair of shoes from among the dozen the salesgirl had shown her")