Meanings
- not comparableNot having been sifted.
If you bake with unsifted flour you don't know how much you are using because it might be packed down or very fluffy.
- archaicfigurativelynot comparableInexperienced; untried, unscrutinized.
[…] You speak like a green girl, Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]1 more example
1765, George Colman, The Comedies of Terence, Translated into Familiar Blank Verse, London: T. Becket & P. A. De Hondt, 2nd edition, 1768, Volume I, Preface, p. xxxii, But each man’s understanding, such as it is, must be his guide; and he, who has not courage to make a free use of it, but obtrudes the opinions of others, unsifted and unexamined, on his readers, betrays more want of respect for their understanding, than diffidence of his own.
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*né
- Proto-Indo-European*n̥-
- Proto-Germanic*un-
- Proto-West Germanic*un-
- Old Englishun-
- Middle Englishun-
- Englishun-
- Englishsifted
- Englishunsifted
Cite this entry
unsifted. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unsifted
“unsifted.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unsifted. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “unsifted,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/unsifted.
Source: unsifted on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.