filter
UK /ˈfɪltə/ · US /ˈfɪltɚ/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms filters filtering filtered
- noun A device which separates a suspended, dissolved, or particulate matter from a fluid, solution, or other substance; any device that separates one substance from another.
- noun Electronics or software that separates unwanted signals (for example noise) from wanted signals or that attenuates selected frequencies.
- noun Any item, mechanism, device, or procedure that acts to separate or isolate. “He runs an email filter to catch the junk mail.”
- noun (figurative) Self-restraint in speech. “He's got no filter, and he's always offending people as a result.”
- noun (mathematics, order theory) A non-empty upper set (of a partially ordered set) which is closed under binary infima (a.k.a. meets). “The collection of cofinite subsets of ℝ is a filter under inclusion: it includes the intersection of every pair of its members, and includes every superset of every cofinite set.”
- noun (photography) A translucent object placed in the light path of a camera to remove certain wavelengths (colors), or a computer program that simulates such an effect.
- noun (social media) An appearance-altering digital image effect.
- verb (transitive) To sort, sift, or isolate. “This strainer should filter out the large particles.”
- verb (transitive) To diffuse; to cause to be less concentrated or focused. “The leaves of the trees filtered the light.”
- verb (intransitive) To pass through a filter or to act as though passing through a filter. “The water filtered through the rock and soil.”
- verb (intransitive) To move slowly or gradually; to come or go a few at a time. “The crowd filtered into the theater.”
- verb (intransitive) To ride a motorcycle between lanes on a road “I can skip past all the traffic on my bike by filtering.”
- verb (intransitive, derogatory, fandom slang) To be discouraged where a connoisseur or hardcore fan would not. “Most people get filtered by that episode.”
- proper noun A surname from German.
Synonyms
to filter out filtrate strain separate out filter out percolate sink in permeate trickle dribble
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English filtre, from Medieval Latin filtrum (compare also Old French feutre (“felt; filter”)), from Frankish *filtir, from Proto-West Germanic *felt. See felt. Doublet of phin.
Borrowed from German Filter.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Any porous substance, as cloth, paper, sand, or charcoal, through which water or other liquid may passed to cleanse it from the solid or impure matter held in suspension; a chamber or device containing such substance; a strainer; also, a similar device for purifying air. Filter bed, a pond, the bottom of which is a filter composed of sand gravel.
- verb To purify or defecate, as water or other liquid, by causing it to pass through a filter. Filtering paper, or Filter paper, a porous unsized paper, for filtering.
- verb To pass through a filter; to percolate.
- noun Same as Philter.
Etymology [F. filtre, the same word as feutre felt, LL. filtrum, feltrum, felt, fulled wool, this being used for straining liquors. See Feuter.]
Etymology [Cf. F. filter. See Filter, n., and cf. Filtrate.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “filter”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details