Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A porous material through which a liquid or gas is passed in order to separate the fluid from suspended particulate matter.
  • noun A device containing such a material, especially one used to extract impurities from air or water.
  • noun Any of various electric, electronic, acoustic, or optical devices used to reject signals, vibrations, or radiations of certain frequencies while allowing others to pass.
  • noun A colored glass or other transparent material used to select the wavelengths of light allowed to reach a photosensitive material.
  • noun Computers A program or device that blocks e-mail or restricts website access when specific criteria are met.
  • intransitive verb To pass (a liquid or gas) through a filter.
  • intransitive verb To remove by passing through a filter.
  • intransitive verb Computers To use a filter to block or restrict access to.
  • intransitive verb To pass through or as if through a filter.
  • intransitive verb To come or go gradually and in small groups.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Same as felter.
  • noun See philter.
  • To purify or defecate, as water or other liquid, by passing it through a filter or any cleansing medium; strain.
  • Specifically In analytic chemistry, to separate (a solution) from the solid matter contained in it, either for the purpose of collecting and saving the solid matter, usually a precipitate, or of preparing the solution for further operations.
  • To percolate; pass through or as through a filter.
  • noun A device for arresting and separating any matter mechanically suspended in a liquid.
  • noun Specifically In fish-culture, a long box in which screens, usually of flannel, are placed, through which the water is filtered before it passes into the hatching-troughs. Also called filtering-box, filtering-tank.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To pass through a filter; to percolate.
  • noun Same as philter.
  • transitive verb To purify or defecate, as water or other liquid, by causing it to pass through a filter.
  • transitive verb a porous unsized paper, for filtering.
  • 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.
  • noun a pond, the bottom of which is a filter composed of sand gravel.
  • noun an underground gallery or tunnel, alongside of a stream, to collect the water that filters through the intervening sand and gravel; -- called also infiltration gallery.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • 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.
  • noun mathematics, order theory A non-empty upper set (of a partially ordered set) which is closed under binary infima (a.k.a. meets).
  • verb transitive To sort, sift, or isolate.
  • verb transitive To diffuse; to cause to be less concentrated or focused.
  • verb intransitive To pass through a filter or to act as though passing through a filter.
  • verb intransitive To move slowly or gradually; to come or go a few at a time.
  • verb intransitive To ride a motorcycle between lanes on a road

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb run or flow slowly, as in drops or in an unsteady stream
  • verb pass through
  • verb remove by passing through a filter
  • noun an electrical device that alters the frequency spectrum of signals passing through it
  • noun device that removes something from whatever passes through it

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English filtre, from Old French, from Medieval Latin filtrum, of Germanic origin; see pel- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

(noun) From Medieval Latin filtrum, from West Germanic *filtiz.

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Examples

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  • For example, a call to polymorphic_path ([@project, @filter, @issue]) with a nil filter now returns commit

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  • $filter - You assign a filter expression to this parameter to filter the movie results.

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  • Cast post a whole host of words which trigger the word filter yet no one seems to know what the list of words are.

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  • Setting up a filter is the same whether you're working with ad groups, keywords, or placement; though, the criteria you can filter by does depend on what you're trying to filter.

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  • Raising his voice Clay boomed into the microphone, "the filter is the single most important function on the internet today."

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  • I need a more functional bottle and a filter is a good addition to any daily water bottle.

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  • Raising his voice Clay boomed into the microphone, "the filter is the single most important function on the internet today."

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  • So the kind of filtering described above might well pass muster for “targeting persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States,” even if it scoops up a lot of stuff that proves not to be germane, provided the filter is at least reasonably well designed to gather information about the target foreign group.

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Comments

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  • "You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self." Whitman, Song of Myself, 2

    January 4, 2008

  • Did you know that Wordie is not available from all computers here in Buenos Aires? Last night when I tried to access the site, all I got was a perpetual "site not found" message. Earlier this evening, working from a different machine (I'm in an internet café), there was no problem. But this machine found the site, indicated it had potential adult content, and immediately closed down the window.

    The content filter has now been turned off. At least I think it has. If you are reading this message, we can assume that it has.

    Oh, you foul-mouthed Wordies, the porteños are onto you!!!

    August 14, 2008

  • Filth!

    August 14, 2008

  • Scandal!

    August 14, 2008

  • Cursitis!

    August 14, 2008