sift

Other forms of sift

past tense

sifted·

present participle

sifting·

third person

sifts·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about sift

What does sift mean?

sift means "move as if through a sieve". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in sift?

sift has 1 syllable: sift. In IPA it is /ˈsɪft/.

What is another word for sift?

Close synonyms include sieve, strain, sieve, sieve. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is sift a common word?

sift is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.