filter

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   remove by passing through a filter

   filter out the impurities

2. 2
   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.

   Then add four drops of crocodile semen, and pass the mixture through a filter.

3. 3
   noun

   Any item, mechanism, device, or procedure that acts to separate or isolate.

   He runs an email filter to catch the junk mail.

4. 4
   noun

   Self-restraint in speech.

   These were women with enormous feelings and, almost always, no filter to mediate their expression of them.

5. 5
   noun

   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.

6. 6
   noun

   An appearance-altering digital image effect.

   He don't need no filter posting pictures!

7. 7
   verb

   To sort, sift, or isolate.

   This strainer should filter out the large particles.

8. 8
   verb

   To diffuse; to cause to be less concentrated or focused.

   The leaves of the trees filtered the light.

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.