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To separate with a sieve, as the fine part of a substance from the coarse; as, to sift meal or flour; to sift powder; to sift sand or lime.

One who, or that which, sifts.

To sift or separate the coarser from the finer particles of, as bran from flour, by means of a bolter; to separate, assort, refine, or purify by other means. He now had bolted all the flour. Spenser. Ill schooled in bolted language. Shak.

One who sifts flour or meal.

A sifting, as of flour or meal.

oat of the seed of wheat, rye, or other cereal grain, separated from the flour or meal by sifting or bolting; the coarse, chaffy part of ground grain.

To sift; to strain; to examine thoroughly; to scrutinize; as, to canvass the votes cast at an election; to canvass a district with reference to its probable vote. I have made careful search on all hands, and canvassed the matter with all possible diligence. Woodward.

To cause to pass through a sieve or riddle; to sift.

The act or process of separating the finer parts of drugs from the coarser by sifting.

utation; to reason upon by presenting favorable and adverse considerations; to debate; to sift; to investigate; to ventilate. "We sat and . . . discussed the farm . . . and the price of grain." Tennyson. "To discuss questions of taste." Macaulay.

One who discusses; one who sifts or examines. Wood.

To sift or sprinkle flour, etc., on, as on roasting meat. Beau. & Fl. Dredging box. (a) Same as 2d Dredger. (b) (Gun.) A copper box with a perforated lid; -- used for sprinkling meal powder over shell fuses. Farrow.

To thrash in the chaff; also, to cleanse or sift, as barley. [Prov. Eng.] Halliwell.

The finer portions of ore which go through the meshes, when the ore is sorted by sifting.

Very fine, sifted, woolen refuse, especially that from shearing the nap of cloths, used as a coating for wall paper to give it a velvety or clothlike appearance; also, the dust of vegetable fiber used for a similar purpose. Flock bed, a bed filled with flocks or locks of coarse wool, or pieces of cloth cut up fine. "On…

stard. Flour bolt, in milling, a gauze-covered, revolving, cylindrical frame or reel, for sifting the flour from the refuse contained in the meal yielded by the stones. -- Flour box a tin box for scattering flour; a dredging box. -- Flour dredge or dredger, a flour box. -- Flour dresser, a mashine for sorting and di…

Anything sifted, or from which the coarse parts have been taken. [Obs.]

To sift or bolt, to separate the fine or valuable parts of from the coarse and useless parts, or from dros or dirt; as, to garble spices. [Obs.]

To filter or sift in.

flour by a succession of crackings, or of slight and partial crushings, alternately with sifting and sorting the product. -- Low milling, milling in which the reduction is effected in a single crushing or grinding. -- Milling cutter, a fluted, sharp-edged rotary cutter for dressing surfaces, as of metal, of various…