separate
verb · adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Divide into components or constituents.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sehperaytSay the bold part a little louder.
adjective: sepruhtverb: sepuhrayt
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɛpɚeɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Divide into components or constituents
transitive
To divide (a thing) into separate parts.
Separate into parts or portions
transitive
To disunite from a group or mass; to disconnect.
transitive
To cause (things or people) to be separate.
Become separated into pieces or fragments
adjective
Apart from (the rest); not connected to or attached to (anything else).
followed by "from"
Not together (with); not united (to).
noun
usually in the plural
Anything that is sold by itself, especially articles of clothing such as blouses, skirts, jackets, and pants.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Divide into components or constituents
Used this way, separate is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use separate
- “The friends separated after the party.”verb
- “The two pieces that we had glued separated.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
An apparatus that uses centrifugal force to separate particles from a suspension.
An advocate of secession or separation from a larger group (such as an established church or a national union).
Apart from others.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Remove by passing through a filter.
Partition by means of a divider, such as a screen.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The energy required to separate particles from a molecule or atom or nucleus.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.