In basketball, a player who is a poor defender is sometimes referred to as a "sieve."

Basketball summary and related information.

general number field sieve

sieve of Eratosthenes

a tamis, also known as a drum sieve

a sieve (category theory), a way of writing down how objects in a category glue to give other one

in sieve theory, a technique for counting or filtering sets of numbers

Sieve (mail filtering language), a proposed standard for specifying mail filters

large sieve

a stainless steel strainer, used in plumbing

(see also: Filter)

in transport phenomena, see sieving coefficient

a cocktail strainer, a bar accessory

a chinoise, or conical sieve used as a strainer, also sometimes used like a food mill.

a colander, a (typically) bowl-shaped sieve used as a strainer in cooking

In general, a sieve separates wanted/desired elements from unwanted material using a tool such as a mesh, net or other filtration or distillation methods. The word "sift" derives from this term. A strainer is a type of sieve typically associated with separating liquids from solids. Sieve may mean:

a zaru, or bamboo sieve, used in Japanese cooking

a flour sifter, used in baking

in the mining industry, a mesh used to separate fine particles from coarse ones

Sieve C++ Parallel Programming System, an auto-parallelizing compiler for C++

in metaphor and simile, sieve may often be used to refer to things that are leaky, as a sieve used for a bowl.

In particular, in hockey, a goaltender who lets a lot of goals through is sometimes compared to a sieve. (In college hockey students chant the word "sieve" at the opposite goalie)

On rivers, a sieve or strainer is a dangerous obstacle that water can pass through, but people cannot. See Obstacle in whitewater canoing

the Sieve, a river in Italy