筛选

• Pinyin: shāi xuǎn
• Hanzi breakdown: 筛 = 竹 (bamboo radical) + 師 (phonetic shāi) = bamboo sieve = to sift; 选 = 辶 (movement radical) + 巽 (phonetic xuǎn) = to select/choose

Meaning

To screen and select; to filter through a pool of candidates, data, or items and identify those that meet specified criteria.

Core term in recruitment (筛选简历 — screen CVs), medicine (筛选检测 — screening test), data science (数据筛选 — data filtering), and quality control. More systematic and purposeful than 筛 alone — implies a deliberate evaluation framework with explicit criteria.

Examples

1. 该制药公司利用高通量筛选技术在数以万计的化合物库中快速识别出具有靶向抑制活性的候选药物分子。 Using high-throughput screening, the pharmaceutical company quickly identified candidate drug molecules with targeted inhibitory activity from a library of tens of thousands of compounds.
2. 人事部门在两周内对所有投递简历的应聘者进行了初步筛选，按照学历、经验和技能三项指标确定了进入面试的名单。 Within two weeks, HR conducted an initial screening of all applicants who submitted resumes and, using education, experience, and skills as the three criteria, finalized the list of candidates moving on to interviews.
3. 平台算法通过分析用户的浏览历史与互动行为，从海量内容中筛选出最符合其个人兴趣的推荐条目。 By analyzing users’ browsing history and engagement behavior, the platform’s algorithm filters massive amounts of content to select recommendation items that best match their personal interests.

Usage Guide

Context: recruitment, medicine, data science, quality control

Tone: neutral

Do Say

• 新药研发过程中，研究人员对候选化合物的筛选往往需要经历靶点验证、细胞实验和动物模型三个递进阶段，每一阶段都会淘汰大量不达标的分子。(In drug development, screening candidate compounds typically involves three progressive stages — target validation, cellular assays, and animal models — each of which eliminates large numbers of substandard molecules.)
• 招聘委员会制定了一套包含七项核心指标的量化筛选标准，以确保候选人的评估过程尽量客观，减少主观偏见对录用决策的干扰。(The recruitment committee established a quantitative screening framework with seven core indicators to ensure the candidate evaluation process was as objective as possible and to minimise the influence of subjective bias on hiring decisions.)

Don't Say

• 我筛选了他 — 筛选 takes an inanimate or collective object such as 简历、数据、样本; for assessing a specific person, use 评估、考核, or 审查 instead

Origin & History

筛 = 竹 (bamboo) + 師 (phonetic shāi) = bamboo sieve = to sift; 选 = 辶 (movement radical) + 巽 (phonetic xuǎn) = to choose from among options; together: to sift through and choose

Cultural Context

Generation: All ages

Social background: Universal