select vs sift out

select

verb
  • To choose one or more elements of a set, especially a set of options. 

  • To obtain a set of data from a database using a query. 

adj
  • Privileged, specially selected. 

  • Of high quality; top-notch. 

sift out

verb
  • To isolate or identify one particular thing from a collection that includes less relevant things. 

How often have the words select and sift out occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )