Sieve.
1. A frame of wood or metal, having a meshed bottom, used for separating particles of different degrees of fineness. The sifter, strainer, riddle, colander, are all forms of sieves, and have special applications rather than different functions. The ancient Egyptian sieves were made of string, papyrus, or rushes, at according to quality; and some were made of perforated metallic plates, as shown in a group where the public pounders are at work reducing to powder the materials brought to them. See mortar, Fig. 3226. “The Gauls were the first to employ flour bolts made of horse-hair; the people of Spain made their sieves and mealdressers of flax.” — Pliny. Sieves are of horse-hair, gauze, wire, silk (for pottery, porcelain, and flour), perforated parchment (for gunpowder), cloth, wooden slats, etc. See also sifter.2. (Founding.) The hand-sieve is especially a molder's tool, in the use of which he becomes very expert. Brass-wire cloth of various degrees of fineness strained in circular hoops, three or four inches deep, is generally used. 3. A kind of coarse basket.
4. (Calico-printing.) A cloth extending over the vat which contains the color.
