Screen, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Screened; p. pr. & vb. n. Screening.]
1. To provide with a shelter or means of concealment; to separate or cut off from inconvience, injury, or danger; to shelter; to protect; to protect by hiding; to conceal; as, fruits screened from cold winds by a forest or hill. They were encouraged and screened by some who were in high comands. Macaulay.
2. To pass, as coal, gravel, ashes, etc., through a screen in order to separate the coarse from the fine, or the worthless from the valuable; to sift.
1 other Webster entry under this spelling
Screen, n.
1. Anything that separates or cuts off inconvience, injury, or danger; that which shelters or conceals from view; a shield or protection; as, a fire screen. Your leavy screens throw down. Shak. Some ambitious men seem as screens to princes in matters of danger and envy. Bacon.
2. (Arch.)
A dwarf wall or partition carried up to a certain height for separation and protection, as in a church, to separate the aisle from the choir, or the like.
3. A surface, as that afforded by a curtain, sheet, wall, etc., upon which an image, as a picture, is thrown by a magic lantern, solar microscope, etc.
4. A long, coarse riddle or sieve, sometimes a revolving perforated cylinder, used to separate the coarser from the finer parts, as of coal, sand, gravel, and the like.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for screen; he lists it under hide, palliate, shelter.
He lists it without comment; the entries above explain its neighbors.