filter

Definitions

1. 1.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. Filter bed, a pond, the bottom of which is a filter composed of sand gravel. -- Filter gallery, 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.
2. 2.To purify or defecate, as water or other liquid, by causing it to pass through a filter. Filtering paper, or Filter paper, a porous unsized paper, for filtering.
3. 3.To pass through a filter; to percolate.
4. 4.Same as Philter.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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• What does "filter" mean?

Reverse-dictionary questions

Definition-first questions whose answer is filter.

• What is to purify or defecate, as water or other liquid, by causing it to pass through a filter. Filtering paper, or Filter paper, a porous unsized paper, for filtering called?