screening

Pluralscreenings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The showing of a film to an audience, typically by projecting it on a screen.

   The festival opened with the screening of a restored silent classic.

   Admission to the screening was limited to invited critics and journalists.

   Similarshowing, presentation, viewing

   Note

   The same suffix on a different screen: here the screen is the surface a film is projected onto, not a sieve or a shield. A screening is usually a single event, so it takes the article and a film as its object, as in a screening of a documentary or a private screening for critics.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The testing of people in a population who show no symptoms, in order to identify cases of a disease early.

   Regular screening for breast cancer can catch tumors years before symptoms appear.

   Newborn hearing screening is now standard practice in many hospitals.

   Similartesting

   Note

   Medicine's use turns on one word: asymptomatic. Screening looks for disease in people who feel well. That sets it apart from testing a patient who already has symptoms. The usual construction is screening for a condition, and the unit is a whole population or group rather than a single complaint, which is why it is spoken of as a routine rather than a response.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The examination of job applicants, business propositions, or investment opportunities to identify hidden weaknesses or unsuitability.

   Thorough screening of résumés eliminated half the applicants before interviews began.

   The venture fund relies on early screening to weed out startups with shaky finances.

   Similarvetting, review, evaluation, assessment, scrutiny

   Note

   In business the word keeps the sieve's logic: it is a filter that rejects, not a final verdict. What it hunts for is latent, meaning the weakness in a proposal, applicant or investment that is not yet visible. It usually comes before closer scrutiny, so screening of résumés or of deals is the first cut, not the decision.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The examination of people or materials to detect problems, through any of various testing, checking, or filtering processes.

   Careful screening of the water samples revealed traces of lead.

   Every package goes through screening before it enters the courthouse.

   Similartesting, inspection, examination, checking

   Note

   Here the sieve becomes a metaphor for any check that sorts the acceptable from the problematic. Its most familiar everyday setting is the airport, in phrases like pre-boarding screening and security screening. Workplace safety uses the same idea for testing staff for alcohol and drugs, the subject of Greg Morse's article “One more for the road?” in RAIL (2023). Medicine and business each narrow this broad sense to a specialized use.

5. 5
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of screen.

   Airport staff were screening every bag before the flight boarded.

   The committee spent the morning screening applications for the scholarship.

   Note

   The verb form shares its spelling with every noun on this page, so construction tells them apart. As a gerund it takes a direct object, as in screening applications. As a noun it needs of, as in the screening of applications. Its range follows the verb: filtering, concealing, censoring, showing a film, fitting with a screen, and testing patients or samples.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A test or method used to check people or materials for problems such as disease.

   A simple vision screening showed that he needed glasses.

   Background screenings are required for everyone who works with children.

   Similartest, check, checkup, examination

   Note

   The countable version: a screening is one test, and several can be given in sequence before anything else is done. Screen means the same thing here and is the shorter choice. The line between this and the activity of checking is grammatical. You undergo screening, but you are given a screening, or several screenings.

7. 7
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The process of passing a material through a screen or sieve to detect and remove unwanted fractions.

   Screening of the crushed rock separated clean gravel from fine dust.

   The recycling plant uses screening to pull large debris from the compost stream.

   Similarsifting, sieving, straining

   Note

   The literal sieve sense, and the one the word's later meanings grow from: screen plus -ing, where the screen is a mesh that lets fine material through and holds coarse material back. Sifting, sieving and straining name the same operation. Once the sieve became a metaphor, the word widened into checking people and materials for problems, so that even an airport check still carries the image of something being caught.

8. 8
   noununcountable

   Mesh material, such as fine wire or plastic netting, used to cover openings like windows and doors while letting air pass through.

   We replaced the rusted screening before mosquito season.

   Hardware stores sell aluminum screening by the roll.

   Similarmesh, netting

9. 9
   nouncountable or uncountableplural

   The refuse or unwanted material left over after sand, coal, ashes, or similar substances have been passed through a screen.

   Trucks hauled the screening away from the gravel pit each evening.

   Coal screening was once burned as cheap fuel in factory boilers.

   Note

   This sense almost always takes the plural: screenings are what is left behind by the sieving process, a heap of material rather than an act. Despite the word refuse, the leftovers can be worth selling. Quarries and mines look for markets for their screenings, so the word reads as a trade term for a by-product, not mere waste. In practice, say coal screenings or stone screenings.

10. 10
    nouncountable or uncountable

    The use of a player's body to shield the ball from an opponent or to block an opponent's view of play.

    Clever screening by the striker shielded the ball until support arrived.

    The forward's screening of the goalkeeper made the long-range shot hard to track.

    Similarshielding

    Note

    Here the screen is the player's own body, drawing on screen in its sense of sheltering or concealing. In soccer it is another name for shielding, and it covers two jobs. One is keeping the ball away from a challenger. The other is standing between a goalkeeper and the ball so that a shot is seen too late.

11. 11
    nouncountable or uncountable

    Positioning by players on the serving team that blocks the opponents' view of the server and of the path the served ball takes.

    The officials called screening after the front row raised their arms during the serve.

    Screening by the blockers hid the jump serve until it was too late to react.

    Note

    Volleyball's version belongs entirely to the serve. The concealment is done by the server's teammates, and what they hide is the server and the ball's flight, so the receivers cannot read the serve. Unlike the soccer sense, it is not about protecting the ball. It is about denying the other side information at the one moment play begins.

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