filter

UK/ˈfɪltə//ˈfɪltɚ/

filter noun: a device which separates a suspended, dissolved, or particulate matter from a fluid, solution, or other substance; any device that separates one substance from another.

Image: Donar Reiskoffer, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

filter (plural filters)

A device which separates a suspended, dissolved, or particulate matter from a fluid, solution, or other substance; any device that separates one substance from another.
- Then add four drops of crocodile semen, and pass the mixture through a filter.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 152
Electronics or software that separates unwanted signals (for example noise) from wanted signals or that attenuates selected frequencies.
Any item, mechanism, device, or procedure that acts to separate or isolate.
- He runs an email filter to catch the junk mail.
- In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%....2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74
(figuratively) Self-restraint in speech.
- He's got no filter, and he's always offending people as a result.
- These were women with enormous feelings and, almost always, no filter to mediate their expression of them.2026 January 30, Judy Berman, “Catherine O’Hara Portrayed the Vain and Delusional With a Radical Lack of Vanity”, in TIME, archived from the original on 01 Feb 2026
A non-empty upper set (of a partially ordered set) which is closed under binary infima (a.k.a. meets).
- The collection of cofinite subsets of ℝ is a filter under inclusion: it includes the intersection of every pair of its members, and includes every superset of every cofinite set.
- If (1) the universal set (here, the set of natural numbers) were called a "large" set, (2) the superset of any "large" set were also a "large" set, and (3) the intersection of a pair of "large" sets were also a "large" set, then the set of all "large" sets would form a filter.
A translucent object placed in the light path of a camera to remove certain wavelengths (colors), or a computer program that simulates such an effect.
(social media) An appearance-altering digital image effect.
- He don't need no filter posting pictures!2013, Patent Pending, “All-Star Hipster”, in Brighter

Verb

filter (third-person singular simple present filters, present participle filtering, simple past and past participle filtered)

(transitive) To sort, sift, or isolate.
- This strainer should filter out the large particles.
- “You have probably never seen anything like this before, Mr. Toler. It is baleen, or if you prefer it, whalebone, taken from the mouth of the bowhead whale. It is used by the whale to filter its food.”1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 5, in The Subtle Minotaur
Synonyms:

to filter out
(transitive) To diffuse; to cause to be less concentrated or focused.
- The leaves of the trees filtered the light.
(intransitive) To pass through a filter or to act as though passing through a filter.
- The water filtered through the rock and soil.
(intransitive) To move slowly or gradually; to come or go a few at a time.
- The crowd filtered into the theater.
(intransitive) To ride a motorcycle between lanes on a road
- I can skip past all the traffic on my bike by filtering.
(derogatory, intransitive, slang) To be discouraged where a connoisseur or hardcore fan would not.
- Most people get filtered by that episode.

Proper noun capitalized: Filter

Filter (plural Filters)

A surname from German.

filter meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

filter in Hindi

device for separating impurities from a fluid or other substance: फ़िल्टर filṭar, साफी sāphī

filter in Tamil

வடிகட்டி, வடிகட்டு

filter in Marathi

device for separating impurities from a fluid or other substance: गाळणी gāḷṇī, फिल्टर philṭar
to sort, sift, or isolate: गाळणे gāḷṇe

filter in Urdu

device for separating impurities from a fluid or other substance: صافی sāfī, فلٹر filṭar, مصفات misfāt

More languagesFewer languages

filter in Bengali: ফিল্টার philṭar
filter in Telugu: వడపోత, ఫిల్టర్, ఫిల్టర్ చేయడానికి
filter in Malayalam: അരിപ്പ, പ്രകാശം അരിക്കുന്ന തിരശ്ശീല, വൈദ്യുതിപ്രവാഹം നിയന്ത്രിക്കുന്ന ഉപകരണം
filter in Kannada: ಸೋಸುತಟ್ಟೆ, ಸೋಸುಕ, ಶೋಧಕ, ಬಸಿ
filter in Punjabi: ਫਿਲਟਰ, ਫ਼ਿਲਟਰ, ਫਿਲਟਰ ਕਰੋ
filter in Gujarati: ગાળક gāḷka, ગાળવું gāḷvũ
filter in Odia: ଫିଲ୍ଟର୍ କରନ୍ତୁ, ଫିଲ୍ଟର୍, ଫିଲ୍ଟର କରନ୍ତୁ
filter in Assamese: ছেকা seka
filter in Nepali: फिल्टर, फिल्टर गर्नुहोस्, फ़िल्टर
filter in Pashto: فيلټر filṭár, فلتر feltár
filter in Tagalog: panala
filter in Arabic: مِصْفَايَة miṣfāya, فِلْتَر filtar
filter in Malay: penapis
filter in Persian: فیلتر filter, صافی sâfi
filter in Thai: กรอง grɔɔng, เครื่องกรอง krʉ̂ʉang-grɔɔng
filter in Vietnamese: máy lọc, lọc, bộ lọc, cái lọc
filter in Myanmar: စစ် cac, ရေစစ်အိုး recacui:, ရေစစ် recac, လေစစ် lecac

Examples of filter in a sentence

That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74:
Receivers often incorporate digital equalisers to 'mop up' slight intersymbol interference after initial filtering at the receiver.1992, Chris C. Bissell, David A. Chapman, Digital signal transmission (2nd edition), Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 147:

All 40 example sentences with filter

Synonyms of filter

to filter out

Antonyms

ideal

Forms of filter

Noun
plural	filters
Verb
third-person singular present	filters
present participle	filtering
past participle	filtered
past	filtered
Proper noun
plural	Filters

Past tense of filter: filtered

Plural of filter: filters

Origin of filter

From Middle English filtre, from Medieval Latin filtrum (compare also Old French feutre (“felt; filter”)), from Frankish *filtir, from Proto-West Germanic *felt. See felt. Doublet of phin.

Borrowed from German Filter.

Phrases with filter

18 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with filter

Questions about filter

What does filter mean?: Filter means a device which separates a suspended, dissolved, or particulate matter from a fluid, solution, or other substance; any device that separates one substance from another.
What is filter in Hindi?: Filter in Hindi is फ़िल्टर (filṭar), साफी (sāphī). See Filter meaning in Hindi.
How do you use filter in a sentence?: That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.
What part of speech is filter?: Filter can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce filter?: Filter is pronounced /ˈfɪltə/ (UK).
What is the plural of filter?: The plural of filter is filters.

Words near filter in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: filter (page history and authors); Filter (page history and authors); filter (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); filter (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); filter (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); filter (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); filter (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ગાળક (Gujarati) (page history and authors); filter (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); filter (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-filter.ogg.

Cite this entry: “filter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/filter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.