sep·a·rate (s p  -r t )v. sep·a·rat·ed, sep·a·rat·ing, sep·a·rates v.tr.1. a. To set or keep apart; disunite. b. To space apart; scatter: small farms that were separated one from another by miles of open land. c. To sort: separate mail by postal zones. 2. To differentiate or discriminate between; distinguish: a researcher who separated the various ethnic components of the population sample. 3. To remove from a mixture or combination; isolate. 4. To part (a couple), often by decree: She was separated from her husband last year. 5. To terminate a contractual relationship, as military service, with; discharge. v.intr.1. To come apart. 2. To withdraw: The state threatened to separate from the Union. 3. To part company; disperse. 4. To stop living together as spouses. 5. To become divided into components or parts: Oil and water tend to separate. adj. (spr- t, sprt)1. Set or kept apart; disunited: Libraries often have a separate section for reference books. 2. a. Existing as an independent entity. b. often Separate Having undergone schism or estrangement from a parent body: Separate churches. 3. Dissimilar from all others; distinct: "a policeman's way of being separate from you even when he was being nice" John le Carré. 4. Not shared; individual: two people who held separate views on the issue. 5. Archaic Withdrawn from others; solitary.
[Middle English separaten, from Latin s partus, past participle of sparre : s-, apart; see s(w)e- in Indo-European roots + parre, to prepare; see per-1 in Indo-European roots.]
sepa·rate·ly adv. sepa·rate·ness n. Synonyms: separate, divide, part, sever, sunder, divorce These verbs mean to become or cause to become parted, disconnected, or disunited. Separate applies both to putting apart and to keeping apart: "In the darkness and confusion, the bands of these commanders became separated from each other" Washington Irving. Divide implies separation by or as if by cutting or splitting into parts or shares; the term often refers to separation into opposing or hostile groups: We divided the orange into segments. "'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free" Abraham Lincoln. Part refers most often to the separation of closely associated persons or things: "Because ... nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us" Emily Brontë. Sever usually implies abruptness and force: "His head was nearly severed from his body" H.G. Wells. Sunder stresses violent tearing or wrenching apart: The country was sundered by civil war. Divorce implies complete separation: "a priest and a soldier, two classes of men circumstantially divorced from the kind and homely ties of life" Robert Louis Stevenson. See Also Synonyms at distinct. |
separate Verb [-rating, -rated] 1. to act as a barrier between: the narrow stretch of water which separates Europe from Asia 2. to part or be parted from a mass or group 3. to distinguish: it's what separates the women from the boys 4. to divide or be divided into component parts 5. to sever or be severed 6. (of a couple) to stop living together Adjective 1. existing or considered independently: a separate issue 2. set apart from the main body or mass 3. distinct or individual [Latin separare] separately adv
separateness n
separator n
ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms | Noun | 1. | separate - a separately printed article that originally appeared in a larger publicationarticle - nonfictional prose forming an independent part of a publication | | 2. | separate - a garment that can be purchased separately and worn in combinations with other garmentsgarment - an article of clothing; "garments of the finest silk" | | Verb | 1. | separate - act as a barrier between; stand between; "The mountain range divides the two countries" | | 2. | separate - force, take, or pull apart; "He separated the fighting children"; "Moses parted the Red Sea"polarise, polarize - cause to concentrate about two conflicting or contrasting positions disjoin, disjoint - make disjoint, separated, or disconnected; undo the joining of disconnect - make disconnected, disjoin or unfasten cut - separate with or as if with an instrument; "Cut the rope" tear - to separate or be separated by force; "planks were in danger of being torn from the crossbars" joint - separate (meat) at the joint gin - separate the seeds from (cotton) with a cotton gin break - separate from a clinch, in boxing; "The referee broke the boxers" rupture, tear, snap, bust - separate or cause to separate abruptly; "The rope snapped"; "tear the paper" move, displace - cause to move or shift into a new position or place, both in a concrete and in an abstract sense; "Move those boxes into the corner, please"; "I'm moving my money to another bank"; "The director moved more responsibilities onto his new assistant" | | 3. | separate - mark as different; "We distinguish several kinds of maple"know - be able to distinguish, recognize as being different; "The child knows right from wrong" identify, place - recognize as being; establish the identity of someone or something; "She identified the man on the 'wanted' poster" label - distinguish (an element or atom) by using a radioactive isotope or an isotope of unusual mass for tracing through chemical reactions label - distinguish (as a compound or molecule) by introducing a labeled atom sex - tell the sex (of young chickens) contrast - put in opposition to show or emphasize differences; "The middle school teacher contrasted her best student's work with that of her weakest student" decouple, dissociate - regard as unconnected; "you must dissociate these two events!"; "decouple our foreign policy from ideology" demarcate - separate clearly, as if by boundaries stratify - divide society into social classes or castes; "Income distribution often stratifies a society" | | 4. | separate - separate into parts or portions; "divide the cake into three equal parts"; "The British carved up the Ottoman Empire after World War I"subdivide - divide into smaller and smaller pieces; "This apartment cannot be subdivided any further!" initialise, initialize, format - divide (a disk) into marked sectors so that it may store data; "Please format this disk before entering data!" triangulate - divide into triangles or give a triangular form to; "triangulate the piece of cardboard" lot - divide into lots, as of land, for example parcel - divide into parts; "The developers parceled the land" paragraph - divide into paragraphs, as of text; "This story is well paragraphed" canton - divide into cantons, of a country | | 5. | separate - divide into components or constituents; "Separate the wheat from the chaff"macerate - separate into constituents by soaking card, tease - separate the fibers of; "tease wool" extract - separate (a metal) from an ore fractionate - separate into constituents or fractions containing concentrated constituents sift, sieve, strain - separate by passing through a sieve or other straining device to separate out coarser elements; "sift the flour" wash - separate dirt or gravel from (precious minerals) disperse - separate (light) into spectral rays; "the prosm disperses light" | | 6. | separate - arrange or order by classes or categories; "How would you classify these pottery shards--are they prehistoric?"unitise, unitize - separate or classify into units; "The hospital was unitized for efficiency" catalogue, catalog - make an itemized list or catalog of; classify; "He is cataloguing his photographic negatives" isolate - separate (experiences) from the emotions relating to them refer - think of, regard, or classify under a subsuming principle or with a general group or in relation to another; "This plant can be referred to a known species" reclassify - classify anew, change the previous classification; "The zoologists had to reclassify the mollusks after they found new species" size - sort according to size stereotype, pigeonhole, stamp - treat or classify according to a mental stereotype; "I was stereotyped as a lazy Southern European" group - arrange into a group or groups; "Can you group these shapes together?" categorise, categorize - place into or assign to a category; "Children learn early on to categorize" grade - determine the grade of or assign a grade to number, count - put into a group; "The academy counts several Nobel Prize winners among its members" | | 7. | separate - make a division or separationpartition, zone - separate or apportion into sections; "partition a room off" break - destroy the integrity of; usually by force; cause to separate into pieces or fragments; "He broke the glass plate"; "She broke the match" rail off, rail - separate with a railing; "rail off the crowds from the Presidential palace" detach - separate (a small unit) from a larger, especially for a special assignment; "detach a regiment" | | 8. | separate - discontinue an association or relation; go different ways; "The business partners broke over a tax question"; "The couple separated after 25 years of marriage"; "My friend and I split up"disunify, break apart - break up or separate; "The country is disunifying"; "Yugoslavia broke apart after 1989" break with - end a relationship; "China broke with Russia" split up, divorce - get a divorce; formally terminate a marriage; "The couple divorced after only 6 months" secede, splinter, break away - withdraw from an organization or communion; "After the break up of the Soviet Union, many republics broke away" break away, break - interrupt a continued activity; "She had broken with the traditional patterns" | | 9. | separate - go one's own way; move apart; "The friends separated after the party"move - move so as to change position, perform a nontranslational motion; "He moved his hand slightly to the right" break up - come apart; "the group broke up" diffract - undergo diffraction; "laser light diffracts electrons" | | 10. |  separate - become separated into pieces or fragments; "The figurine broke"; "The freshly baked loaf fell apart"burst, break open, split - come open suddenly and violently, as if from internal pressure; "The bubble burst" puncture - be pierced or punctured; "The tire punctured" bust, burst - break open or apart suddenly and forcefully; "The dam burst" smash - break suddenly into pieces, as from a violent blow; "The window smashed" ladder, run - come unraveled or undone as if by snagging; "Her nylons were running" break - destroy the integrity of; usually by force; cause to separate into pieces or fragments; "He broke the glass plate"; "She broke the match" snap, crack - break suddenly and abruptly, as under tension; "The pipe snapped" crush - become injured, broken, or distorted by pressure; "The plastic bottle crushed against the wall" | | 11. | separate - treat differently on the basis of sex or raceisolate, insulate - place or set apart; "They isolated the political prisoners from the other inmates" hive off - remove from a group and make separate; "The unit was hived off from its parent company" segregate - separate by race or religion; practice a policy of racial segregation; "This neighborhood is segregated"; "We don't segregate in this county" redline - discriminate in selling or renting housing in certain areas of a neighborhood | | 12. | separate - come apart; "The two pieces that we had glued separated"change - undergo a change; become different in essence; losing one's or its original nature; "She changed completely as she grew older"; "The weather changed last night" subdivide - form into subdivisions; "The cells subdivided" segregate - divide from the main body or mass and collect; "Many towns segregated into new counties"; "Experiments show clearly that genes segregate" segment - divide or split up; "The cells segmented" reduce - undergo meiosis; "The cells reduce" section, segment - divide into segments; "segment an orange"; "segment a compound word" partition, partition off - divide into parts, pieces, or sections; "The Arab peninsula was partitioned by the British" discerp, dismember, take apart - divide into pieces; "our department was dismembered when our funding dried up"; "The Empire was discerped after the war" gerrymander - divide unfairly and to one's advantage; of voting districts | | 13. | separate - divide into two or more branches so as to form a fork; "The road forks"branch, ramify - grow and send out branches or branch-like structures; "these plants ramify early and get to be very large" twig - branch out in a twiglike manner; "The lightning bolt twigged in several directions" bifurcate - divide into two branches; "The road bifurcated" trifurcate - divide into three; "The road trifurcates at the bridge" diverge - move or draw apart; "The two paths diverge here" | | Adj. | 1. | separate - independent; not united or joint; "a problem consisting of two separate issues"; "they went their separate ways"; "formed a separate church"individual, single - being or characteristic of a single thing or person; "individual drops of rain"; "please mark the individual pages"; "they went their individual ways" independent - free from external control and constraint; "an independent mind"; "a series of independent judgments"; "fiercely independent individualism" segregated, unintegrated - separated or isolated from others or a main group; "a segregated school system"; "a segregated neighborhood" other - not the same one or ones already mentioned or implied; "today isn't any other day"- the White Queen; "the construction of highways and other public works"; "he asked for other employment"; "any other person would tell the truth"; "his other books are still in storage"; "then we looked at the other house"; "hearing was good in his other ear"; "the other sex"; "she lived on the other side of the street from me"; "went in the other direction" divided - separated into parts or pieces; "opinions are divided" joint - united or combined; "a joint session of Congress"; "joint owners" | | 2. | separate - standing apart; not attached to or supported by anything; "a freestanding bell tower"; "a house with a separate garage"detached - used of buildings; standing apart from others; "detached houses"; "a detached garage" | | 3. | separate - separated according to race, sex, class, or religion; "separate but equal"; "girls and boys in separate classes"segregated, unintegrated - separated or isolated from others or a main group; "a segregated school system"; "a segregated neighborhood" | | 4. | separate - have the connection undone; having become separate |
separate adjective 1. unconnected, individual, particular, divided, divorced, isolated, detached, disconnected, discrete, unattached, disjointed << OPPOSITE connected verb 6. split up, part, divorce, break up, part company, get divorced, be estranged, go different ways  Translations separate adj [ˈsɛprɪt]vb [ˈsɛpəreɪt] vi → separarse;
 separate adj [ˈsɛprɪt]vb [ˈsɛpəreɪt]
 separate [ˈsɛprɪt] adj → getrennt; to go separate ways → getrennte Wege gehen; under separate cover ( Comm) → mit getrennter Post;
 separate adj [ˈsɛprɪt] → separato/avb [ˈsɛpəreɪt] vi → separarsi;
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separate