filter

See also: Filter and filtër

English

Air filter
Neutral density filter

Etymology

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.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈfɪltə/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈfɪltɚ/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪltə(ɹ)
  • Homophone: philter

Noun

filter (plural filters)

  1. 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.
    • 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 152:
      Then add four drops of crocodile semen, and pass the mixture through a filter.
  2. Electronics or software that separates unwanted signals (for example noise) from wanted signals or that attenuates selected frequencies.
  3. Any item, mechanism, device, or procedure that acts to separate or isolate.
    He runs an email filter to catch the junk mail.
    • 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist‎[1], volume 407, number 8837, London: The Economist Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 October 2017, page 74:
      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%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%. That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.
  4. (figurative) Self-restraint in speech.
    He's got no filter, and he's always offending people as a result.
    • 2026 January 30, Judy Berman, “Catherine O’Hara Portrayed the Vain and Delusional With a Radical Lack of Vanity”, in Time‎[2], New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 1 February 2026:
      These were women with enormous feelings and, almost always, no filter to mediate their expression of them.
  5. (mathematics, order theory) 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.
  6. (photography) 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.
  7. (social media) An appearance-altering digital image effect.
    • 2013, Patent Pending, “All-Star Hipster”, in Brighter:
      He don't need no filter posting pictures!

Antonyms

  • (antonym(s) of “order theory”): ideal

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Descendants

  • → Japanese: フィルター (firutā)
  • → Korean: 필터 (pilteo)

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To sort, sift, or isolate.
    This strainer should filter out the large particles.
    • 1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 5, in The Subtle Minotaur‎[3]:
      “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.”
    • 1992, Chris C. Bissell, David A. Chapman, Digital signal transmission (2nd edition), Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 147:
      Receivers often incorporate digital equalisers to 'mop up' slight intersymbol interference after initial filtering at the receiver.
    • 2022 October 25, Willy Staley, “The Try Guys and the Prison of Online Fame”, in The New York Times Magazine‎[4], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 8 November 2025:
      But fans’ emotions are no longer filtered through ticket or album sales; they’re heard directly, constantly, at all hours, on all the platforms people visit to generate and extinguish bad feelings in a never-ending cycle.
  2. (transitive) To diffuse; to cause to be less concentrated or focused.
    The leaves of the trees filtered the light.
  3. (intransitive) To pass through a filter or to act as though passing through a filter.
    The water filtered through the rock and soil.
  4. (intransitive) To move slowly or gradually; to come or go a few at a time.
    The crowd filtered into the theater.
  5. (intransitive) To ride a motorcycle between lanes on a road
    I can skip past all the traffic on my bike by filtering.
  6. (intransitive, derogatory, fandom slang) To be discouraged where a connoisseur or hardcore fan would not.
    Most people get filtered by that episode.

Synonyms

  • (to sort, sift, or isolate) to filter out (something)

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Anagrams

Chinese

Etymology

From English filter. Doublet of filt.

Pronunciation

Noun

filter

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) filter

Verb

filter

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) to filter

References

Danish

Etymology

Borrowed from French filtre, from Latin filtrum.

Noun

filter n (singular definite filtret or filteret, plural indefinite filtre)

  1. filter

Declension

Declension of filter
neuter
gender 		singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative filter filtret
filteret 		filtre filtrene
genitive filters filtrets
filterets 		filtres filtrenes

Further reading

Dutch

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈfɪl.tər/
  • Audio:(file)
  • Hyphenation: fil‧ter

Etymology 1

Borrowed from French filtre or German Filter, from Latin filtrum.[1]

Noun

filter m or n (plural filters, diminutive filtertje n)

  1. a filter (dense mesh or fabric used for filtration)
  2. a cigarette filter
  3. a light filter
  4. a camera filter
Usage notes

The word is masculine in Belgium, chiefly neuter but sometimes masculine in the Netherlands.

Derived terms
Descendants

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

filter

  1. inflection of filteren:
    1. first-person singular present indicative
    2. (in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative
    3. imperative

References

  1. ^ Philippa, Marlies; Debrabandere, Frans; Quak, Arend; Schoonheim, Tanneke; van der Sijs, Nicoline (2003–2009), Etymologisch woordenboek van het Nederlands (in Dutch), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press

Further reading

  • van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “filter”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute
  • “filter” in Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal – Officiële Spelling, Nederlandse Taalunie. [the official spelling word list for the Dutch language]

Anagrams

German

Pronunciation

Verb

filter

  1. inflection of filtern:
    1. first-person singular present
    2. singular imperative

Hungarian

Etymology

From German Filter, from Medieval Latin filtrum.[1]

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈfiltɛr]
  • Hyphenation: fil‧ter
  • Rhymes: -ɛr

Noun

filter

  1. filter (any device that separates one substance from another)
  2. cigarette filter

Declension

Inflection (stem in -e-, front unrounded harmony)
singular plural
nominative filter filterek
accusative filtert filtereket
dative filternek filtereknek
instrumental filterrel filterekkel
causal-final filterért filterekért
translative filterré filterekké
terminative filterig filterekig
essive-formal filterként filterekként
essive-modal — —
inessive filterben filterekben
superessive filteren filtereken
adessive filternél filtereknél
illative filterbe filterekbe
sublative filterre filterekre
allative filterhez filterekhez
elative filterből filterekből
delative filterről filterekről
ablative filtertől filterektől
non-attributive
possessive – singular 		filteré filtereké
non-attributive
possessive – plural 		filteréi filterekéi
Possessive forms of filter
possessor single possession multiple possessions
1st person sing. filterem filtereim
2nd person sing. filtered filtereid
3rd person sing. filtere filterei
1st person plural filterünk filtereink
2nd person plural filteretek filtereitek
3rd person plural filterük filtereik

References

  1. ^ István Tótfalusi (2005), Idegenszó-tár: Idegen szavak értelmező és etimológiai szótára [A Storehouse of Foreign Words: An Explanatory and Etymological Dictionary of Foreign Words], Budapest: Tinta, →ISBN

Indonesian

Etymology

From Dutch filter, from French filtre, from Medieval Latin filtrum (compare also Old French feutre (“felt; filter”)), from Frankish *filtir, from Proto-West Germanic *felt.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈfɪltər]
  • Hyphenation: fil‧têr

Noun

filter

  1. filter
    1. 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
    2. (electronics, physics) electronics or software that separates unwanted signals (for example noise) from wanted signals or that attenuates selected frequencies

Synonyms

Derived terms

  • memfilter (“to filter”)

Further reading

Kashubian

Etymology

Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *pel-der.
Proto-Germanic *felląder.
Proto-West Germanic *feltbor.
Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr
Proto-Indo-European *-om
Proto-Indo-European *-trom
Proto-Italic *-trom
Latin -trum
Latin filtrumlbor.
French filtrebor.
Polish filtrbor.
Kashubian filter

    Borrowed from Polish filtr.

    Pronunciation

    • IPA(key): /ˈfil.tɛr/
    • Rhymes: -iltɛr
    • Syllabification: fil‧ter

    Noun

    filter m inan

    1. filter (device which separates a suspended, dissolved, or particulate matter from a fluid, solution, or other substance)
      Synonym: czëszcz

    Further reading

    • Jan Trepczyk (1994), “filtr”, in Słownik polsko-kaszubski (in Kashubian), volumes 1–2
    • Eùgeniusz Gòłąbk (2011), “filtr”, in Słownik Polsko-Kaszubski / Słowôrz Pòlskò-Kaszëbsczi‎[5]

    Luxembourgish

    Verb

    filter

    1. singular imperative of filteren

    Norwegian Bokmål

    Etymology

    From French filtre.

    Noun

    filter n (definite singular filteret or filtret, indefinite plural filter or filtre, definite plural filtra or filtrene)

    1. filter

    Derived terms

    References

    Norwegian Nynorsk

    Etymology

    From French filtre.

    Noun

    filter n (definite singular filteret, indefinite plural filter, definite plural filtera)

    1. filter

    Derived terms

    References

    Serbo-Croatian

    Alternative forms

    Pronunciation

    • IPA(key): /fǐlter/
    • Hyphenation: fil‧ter

    Noun

    fìlter m inan (Cyrillic spelling фѝлтер)

    1. filter

    Swedish

    Pronunciation

    • Audio:(file)

    Noun

    filter n

    1. a filter (similar senses to English)

    Declension

    Declension of filter
    nominative genitive
    singular indefinite filter filters
    definite filtret filtrets
    plural indefinite filter filters
    definite filtren filtrens

    Derived terms

    References

    Anagrams

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