O.E. siftan "pass something through a sieve," related to sife (see sieve). Cf. Du. ziften, M.L.G. sichten, Ger. sichten "to sift." Metaphoric sense of "look carefully through" first recorded 1535.
SHARE Internal Fortran Translator. Translation utility designed for converting Fortran II to Fortran IV. The word "sift" was often used as a verb to describe converting code from one language to another. Sammet 1969, p.153.