Idiom idiom
sift through
Meaning
To carefully go through a set of objects, or a collection of information, in order to find something.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“I need to sift through these papers to find my passport.”
“The detective had to sift through hundreds of emails to find the evidence he needed for the case.”
“Researchers must sift through vast amounts of historical data to uncover the truth about how the ancient civilization collapsed.”
Anchors to
Last updated August 10, 2026