sieve

Short definition from Wiktionary

Noun

1. 1
   A device with a mesh, grate, or otherwise perforated bottom to separate, in a granular material, larger particles from smaller ones, or to separate solid objects from a liquid.
2. 2
   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.
3. 3
   A kind of coarse basket.
4. 4
   A person, or their mind, that cannot remember things or is unable to keep secrets.
5. 5
   An intern who lets too many non-serious cases into the emergency room.
6. 6
   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.

Verb

1. 1
   To strain, sift or sort using a sieve.
2. 2
   To concede; let in