sieve

From Middle English sive/syfe, from Old English sife, from Proto-West Germanic *sibi, tracing back to the Proto-Indo-European root *seyp-/*seyb-, meaning 'to pour, sieve, strain, run, drip.'

The word has stayed close to its root sense throughout its history — describing something that lets liquid or fine matter pass while holding back the rest.

It's akin to German Sieb and Dutch zeef, and more distantly to Slavic words like Russian сито (síto, 'sieve') and сеять (séjatʹ, 'to sow'), which share the same ancient root.