Sieve
Part of speech: noun
Definition: A device to separate larger objects from smaller objects, or to separate solid objects from a liquid. 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.
Part of speech: verb
Definition: To strain, sift or sort using a sieve.
Example sentence: Not all single women want to be married. Not all boys like football. Not all homemakers like to cook. Not all messy people are lazy. And not all the obese are gluttons. There are glands and diabetes and a dozen conditions you never heard of that may account for things. Put your sermon through the counter-stereotype sieve.
Sift
Part of speech: verb
Definition: To sieve or strain (something).To separate or scatter (things) as if by sieving.To examine (something) carefully.
Example sentence: Rock bottom is a crisis... and everyone wants to avoid crisis. But what 'crisis' means literally is 'to sift' - like a child who goes to the beach, lifts up the sand, and watches all the sand fall away, hoping that there's treasure left over. That's what crisis does.