Part 382

3. To examine critically or minutely; to scrutinize.

Sifting the very utmost sentence and syllable.

Hooker.

Opportunity I here have had To try thee, sift thee.

Milton.

Let him but narrowly sift his ideas.

I. Taylor.

To sift out, to search out with care, as if by sifting.

Sift"er (?), n. 1. One who, or that which, sifts.

2. (Zoöl.) Any lamellirostral bird, as a duck or goose; -- so called because it sifts or strains its food from the water and mud by means of the lamell&?; of the beak.

Sig (?), n. [Akin to AS. sgan to fall. √151a. See Sink, v. t.] Urine. [Prov. Eng.]

Si*gaul"ti*an (?), a. (Surg.) Pertaining to Sigault, a French physician. See Symphyseotomy.

Sig"ger, v. i. Same as Sicker. [Prov. Eng.]

Sigh (?), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Sighed (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Sighing.] [OE. sighen, si&?;en; cf. also OE. siken, AS. scan, and OE. sighten, si&?;ten, sichten, AS. siccettan; all, perhaps, of imitative origin.] 1. To inhale a larger quantity of air than usual, and immediately expel it; to make a deep single audible respiration, especially as the result or involuntary expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, or the like.

2. Hence, to lament; to grieve.

He sighed deeply in his spirit.

Mark viii. 12.

3. To make a sound like sighing.

And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge.

Coleridge.

The winter winds are wearily sighing.

Tennyson.

An extraordinary pronunciation of this word as sth is still heard in England and among the illiterate in the United States.

Sigh, v. t. 1. To exhale (the breath) in sighs.

Never man sighed truer breath.

Shak.

2. To utter sighs over; to lament or mourn over.

Ages to come, and men unborn, Shall bless her name, and sigh her fate.